English Entertainment
10 veterans to share Lifetime Achievement honours at Daytime Emmys
MUMBAI: Ten veteran television personalities will this year share the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award given during the 31st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. The National Television Academy has for the first time decided to split the award, usually conferred on one person, between the ten veteran actors who have devoted a major portion of their careers to daytime drama – Rachel Ames, John Clarke, Jeanne Cooper, Eileen Fulton, Don Hastings, Anna Lee, Ray MacDonnell, Frances Reid, Helen Wagner, and Ruth Warrick.
The presentations will be made during the Daytime Emmy Awards which are to be held on 21 May at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The Daytime Emmys honour excellence in all fields of daytime television production and are judged and administered in cooperation with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This year’s ceremony is scheduled to be broadcast live on NBC.
The criteria for the award include the actor’s position as an original cast member of his or her current show; 35 or more years on the show; and/or significant lifetime experience in Daytime Drama, according to an official release.
Rachel Ames has been with General Hospital since the first year of the programme’s air date in 1964 and has the honour of being the longest running performer on ABC’s longest running daytime drama. John Clarke is one of the original cast members of Days of our Lives and has played the role of Mickey Horton for 38 years. Jeanne Cooper celebrated her 30th anniversary as Katherine Chancellor, the grande dame of Genoa City, on The Young and the Restless and has been nominated for five Emmy Awards as Outstanding Leading Actress. Eileen Fulton originated the role of Lisa on As The World Turns in 1960 with such aplomb that by 1965 she found herself in her own spin-off series on primetime television. In 1996, Fulton received the Silver Circle Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Today she continues working on World Turns and performing her cabaret act at venues across the country.
Don Hastings has played Dr Bob Hughes on As The World Turns for over 40 years. He has written scripts for both As The World Turns and Guiding Light. Prior to joining World Turns, Hastings starred as the Ranger on the children’s series Captain Video from 1949 – 1955. In 1993 he was recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and received the Silver Circle Award for his more than 25 years of work in television.
Anna Lee has graced General Hospital with her performance of Lila Quartermaine since 1978. She appeared in more than a dozen films in England and then came to the United States in 1939 where she worked with John Ford in the Academy Award winning How Green Was My Valley, the beginning of a 25 year, eight movie collaboration.
Ray MacDonnell joined the original cast of All My Children in 1970 and has since been playing one of Pine Valley’s most honored and upstanding characters, Dr Joe Martin. He has several Broadway and off-Broadway credits to his name and spent nearly eight years portraying Philip Capice on The Edge of Night. Frances Reid has played Alice Horton on Days of our Lives for 38 years and is the only remaining cast member. Prior to her longstanding run on television, Reid appeared in several Broadway performances including Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac and Twelfth Night.
Helen Wagner continues to play the longest-running continuous character in television history, appearing in As The World Turns since 1956. She has several Broadway performances to her credit and has played alongside Rex Harrison, Jeanne Pierre Aumont and Lilli Palmer. Ruth Warrick joined the cast of All My Children in 1970 and has been playing Phoebe Tyler ever since.
Art Linkletter was last year’s recipient of the National Television Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
