English Entertainment
SPTI triumphs at Shanghai Television Festival
MUMBAI: Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) was named best partner and also won the Top 10 highest rated movies awards for The 6th Day and Charlie’s Angels, at an award ceremony hosted by the Shanghai East Movie Channel at the Shanghai Television Festival
400 participants from international and Chinese TV and entertainment companies attended the Shanghai Television festival which took place last month.
The best partner title was the first ever such award presented by Shanghai East Movie Channel in recognition of excellence in partnership and services of content providers globally and in China. The top 10 highest-rated movies awards were given to the most watched movies from amongst hundreds of international and Chinese movie titles in 2004-05.
Shanghai East Movie Channel vice director Xiao Hong said, “The best partner is awarded to SPTI because of its consistent support to Shanghai East Movie Channel beyond simply providing the best content. Its excellence in after sales service and marketing support are integral parts of what best partnership is all about.”
SPTI Asia senior VP and MD Todd Miller said, “We are extremely excited in receiving the awards. They reflect SPTI’s strong commitment to our partnerships with TV channels and help strengthen our position as the prime content provider in the region and globally.”
Recently SPTI had signed a deal with China Central Television’s (CCTV) programming licensing division, China International Television Corporation (CITVC). This marked the first ever licensing deal with a major US studio and the aim was to acquire the multi-year rights to distribute epic drama series The Stories of Han Dynasty in Asia. The CITVC deal marks another milestone for SPTI on the heels of the company’s recently announced distribution agreement with CJ Entertainment to distribute two Korean films throughout Asia. They are The Greatest Expectation and How to Keep My Love.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
