English Entertainment
BBC Studios takes 25% minority stake in unscripted indie Mothership Productions
Mumbai: BBC Studios has taken a minority stake of 25 per cent in unscripted indie Mothership Productions set up by former Channel 4 deputy director of programmes, Kelly Webb-Lamb.
The strategic partnership will see BBC Studios invest in Mothership’s slate of global formats and ideas of scale across the unscripted genres, which will complement the output of BBC Studios’ existing portfolio of in-house and indie labels. Under the terms of the deal, BBC Studios will have first look global distribution and format rights.
On announcing the partnership, Mothership Productions’ founder Kelly Webb-Lamb said, “The whole Mothership team is delighted to be partnering with BBC Studios and to be joining a brilliant stable of invested indies. We’ve been so impressed with the Studios team and are really looking forward to working with them. And for some of us, this feels rather like coming home… you can take the girl out of the BBC, but she never forgets her staff number, and although this is a totally different kind of arrangement, I am super glad that this is where Mothership has ended up in terms of partnership.”
BBC Studios Productions CEO Ralph Lee said, “Kelly is a highly sought-after creative leader who has assembled a team around her that has a formidable pedigree in hit shows and formats in a highly competitive field. It is a true testament to their talent and potential that within only a short period of time, Mothership has developed a slate that is brimming with ideas that we believe will appeal to both UK and international broadcasters and platforms. We can’t wait to have Kelly and the Mothership team join the BBC Studios family and look forward to a productive partnership.”
Webb-Lamm launched Mothership earlier this month with the intention of making “some properly great, entertaining, warm and witty programmes.” She has assembled a senior team of female executives to support the business comprising Charlotte Desai (creative director), Gilly Greenslade (director of programmes), and Gudren Claire (head of production).
Across Webb-Lamb’s career, she has been involved in creating, selling, producing and commissioning a multitude of unscripted shows on UK television, including The Apprentice, Great British Bake Off, Hunted, The Island with Bear Grylls, Mary Queen of Charity Shops and The Circle. In her final year at Channel 4, Webb-Lamb drove and landed the Black to Front Project – the most radical diversity programme in the channel’s history.
BBC Studios’ deal with Mothership builds on its existing indie investments, which includes full ownership of five scripted labels: Lookout Point (Gentleman Jack & Happy Valley 3), Baby Cow Productions (Chivalry & The Witchfinder), House Productions (Sherwood & Life After Life), Clerkenwell Films (The Birth of Daniel F Harris) and Sid Gentle Films (Killing Eve & Ragdoll) as well as minority investments in a further six: Moonage, Various Artists Limited, Expectation Entertainment, Curve Media, Firebird Pictures and Boffola Pictures (a Lookout Point investment). The company also represents hundreds of other independent production companies through first-look and distribution deals and returned more than £180 million to the UK independent production sector in 2021/2022 in development funding, rights investment and royalties.
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.
