English Entertainment
Animated series steals the show at SuperPitch ’02
SINGAPORE: The venue for SuperPitch 2002 is Singapore’s Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa Resort on the picturesque Sentose island. It’s late in the afternoon and six different producers (each has just five minutes to give their best) are waiting to make their programming concept presentations to a prestigious jury consisting of Asian TV commissioning executives.
One of them will go on to win a $5,000 prize and a chance of getting its work commissioned/financed by a TV station/producer. An audience of close to 200 professionals from television awaits their performance.
Welcome to SuperPitch 2002, a concept which was organised by a regional magazine, Television Asia, in conjunction with the Banff Television Foundation. In its second year, it had close to 120 entries, of which six – three from Singapore (Ochre Pictures, Oak Films, Fly Entertainment), one each from Hong Kong (Studio Media), Philippines (Shockpost Multimedia) and India (Grey Cells & Crayons) – were shortlisted as the finalists.
After two hours of pitching, and questions and answers, the winner is finally announced: Hong Kong-based animation studio, Studio Media, which proposed a series of 50 one-minute animated vignettes that take a humorous look at the mating habits of 50 well-known animals, such as frogs, grasshoppers and barnacles titled Ani-mated Animals .
The US$5,000 prize will be officially awarded on the morning of 3 December at the opening ceremony of the third annual Asia Television Forum. The cheque will be awarded to Studio Media’s Larry Feign by Singapore’s acting minister for the ministry of information, communications and the arts David Lim.
During the discussion that followed Ani-mated Animals pitch, the issue that came up most frequently was censorship and the possibility of much of the one-minute vignettes ending up victim to Asian censors’ scissors.
Singapore judges, however, did not anticipate censorship problems. Most said that because it was animation, they did not think anyone airing the vignettes risked contravening local content guidelines. Among the factoids presented in the series are that minks do it for eight hours at a stretch; that dragonflies have shovels on their penises to scoop rivals’ semen out of their mate’s vagina; and that snakes have forked tongues and forked penises.
Ani-mated Animals is based on a book of the same name by Larry Feign. Making the pitch, Feign said the series was educational, entertaining and documentary. He added: “Ironically, the Singapore edition [of the book the series is based on] is more explicit than in the UK. Yes, we admit that there are censorship boards that would find it difficult, but we will be very careful to draw the line at lewdness and the voice over will be light-hearted and humourous but with no exaggeration.”
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.
