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Hefner to get PromaxBDA Lifetime Achievement Award
MUMBAI: Playboy founder Hugh Hefner will receive the PromaxBDA Lifetime Achievement Award at the group‘s 2010 conference.
The event will take place from 22-24 June 2010 in Los Angeles.
Hefner will be interviewed by CNN‘s Larry King about building one of the most identifiable entertainment brands in the world over the last 50 years. Hefner also will discuss how the art and design of Playboy have influenced American culture in a session on 24 June.
PromaxBDA president CEO Jonathan Block-Verk says, “Hugh Hefner has inspired a generation of creativity, and there is no denying that Playboy has been one of the most iconic brands of the last century.”
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.
