English Entertainment
Channel 4 signs new media deal with Buena Vista for hit shows ‘Lost’, ‘Desperate Housewives’
MUMBAI: Buena Vista International Television (BVITV) and the UK’s Channel 4 New Media have signed an agreement. This will enable viewers to access clips from US broadcaster ABC’s hit shows Lost and Desperate Housewives online and via mobile.
Following the launch of the second season of Desperate Housewives on Channel 4, viewers can see clips of forthcoming episodes online at www.channel4.com/desperatehousewives or via the Channel 4 mobile portal using 2.5G or 3G mobile phones. Also available will be interviews with the cast and crew, and trailers of episodes from season one.
In addition, original content such as The Lost Video Daries, designed especially for mobile and DVD distribution platforms, will become available later this year. The Diaries will be available later this year in the UK exclusively on Channel 4’s Lost site and the broadcaster’s mobile portal.
Fans will be able to watch preview clips of the second season of Desperate Housewives online or via the Channel 4 mobile portal using 2.5G or 3G phones. Exclusive interviews with cast and crew and trailers of episodes from series one will also become available.
Channel 4 New Media says that viewers expect to be able to interact with their favourite shows outside of just the TV broadcast, and this is especially true of popular shows such as Desperate Housewives and Lost.
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.
