English Entertainment
‘American Idol 4’ on Star World
MUMBAI: Star World’s American Idol returns to Star World now in its fourth season. The talent show is scheduled to air on 19 January at prime time 8 pm.
The latest edition of American Idol 4 aims at being captivating with some surprising changes to the format of the show. A few established pop stars and rock veterans will join the three judges during the US nationwide auditions.
LL Cool J, Brandy, Kenny Loggins, Sugar Ray front man Mark McGrath and Kiss’ Gene Simmons will guest judge when American Idol goes on cattle calls around the US, touring Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Orlando, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
The new format also sees the number of semi-finalists reduced to 24 (eight fewer than previous seasons’), who are then split into two groups by gender.
During each week of the semi-final round, there will be two performance shows for the two groups respectively, followed by one voting results show – eliminating the bottom two contestants from each group.
Thereby the final will be made up of six male and six female contestants all vying for the honour of the next American Idol.
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.
