English Entertainment
AXN’s India Pak Challenge off to a decent start in Mumbai
MUMBAI: Crawling on hands and feet through muck! Tightening a nut and bolt inside a box filled with over 1000 cockroaches! These were just a couple of challenges that participants in the Mumbai qualifying round of AXN’s Extreme India Vs Pakistan Challenge had to perform.
Around 125 participants mostly college students turned up this morning at the St. Xavier’s Football Ground in Parel. Speaking to Indiantelevision.com on the occasion Sony Assistant VP marketing Rohit Bhandari who looks after AXN in India said, ” The response while not outstanding has been decent when you consider the difficulty reaching the venue. The rain however makes the situation all the more difficult and interesting.
“This is our way of having people experience the AXN brand up close and personal. In the Delhi qualifying round we will have 400 participants while in Bangalore and Kolkata the figure is 300 and 200 respectively. In Karachi so far 140 people have evinced interest. However on the day of the Pakistan event I am confident that more people will turn up.”
The qualifying events have three stages. The first stage sees a sprint and pull ups being performed. 50 participants move into the next stage, which is the most physical. Here you have participants crawling underneath a 30 inch net, scaling a six foot wall and climbing a scaffolding and then moving from one end to the other using a rope and harness. Both timing and the overall personality are taken into account.
The number of contestants is then whittled down to 20 for the third and final stage. This is when the earlier mentioned cockroach box situation comes into play. There is also a situation reaction test that lasts for around ten minutes for each participant.
Each participant answers ten questions within four seconds. The test administrator has a stop watch that beeps on the fourth second. One person emerges victorious. “Our aim is to check their reactions and how they are able to maintain a presence of mind in front of the camera. We are also trying to gauge how each participant will function in a team. The finale will see four Indians having to work together for the first time against four members of Pakistan.”
Bhandari went on to state that the India Vs Pakistan Challenge was the only ground event lined up for this year. “Last year it made sense for us to do the Hot ‘n’ Wild Hunt. It was unique and we were the only ones doing such an event. This year there are so many searches being done by various channels whether it is for a singer or for an actor that if we repeated Hot ‘n’ Wild then we would not stand out. Therefore we decided to stay away from the search concept,” Bhandari explained.
He added that while Guinness World Records was a unique concept that had been done in India a couple of years ago the problem was that there was no instant gratification for the participants. Ratification takes six to eight weeks and the participant is left wondering as to whether his/her effort has been worth it.
AXN however did run a Live your Big Action Dream Contest in June. This was an on air thing where viewers had to mail in their replies to axnindia.com on what they felt was the biggest thing they wanted to in life. Today in Singapore the winner from Mumbai did a 12,000-foot skydive jump from a helicopter. Bhandari explained that this was possible because the Singapore Military was organising a skydiving exhibition.
He however added that some of the requests had not been feasible. “Some people asked for dinner with Shah Rukh Khan, which clearly does not fit our brand. There were a few who wanted to drive a Formula One car, which was out of our reach. We also had a lot of people who wanted to do white water rafting.” The next ten good entries won prizes in the form of mobile phones and other gifts.
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.
