English Entertainment
Discovery India takes to sport as World Cup draws near
In a move timed to capitalise on the football fever on the eve of the World Cup, Discovery Channel has announced a series of documentaries about the game.
The varied football programming, which MD Deepak Shourie claims is an outcome of the channel’s focus on shows that are entertaining, educative and relevant to all viewer groups includes the history of the game, behind the scenes accounts and the business of the game.
The History of Football, a series that started on 4 April covers the multi dimensional cultural, social and political aspects of the game every Thursday at 10 pm takes viewers on a journey through the origins of the game, and what football means to different cultures.
Planet Soccer, a show that airs on 31 May and 23 June at 8 pm will be hosted by Ian Wright and deals with the football fever currently sweeping Korea and Japan.
Football Dreams on 31 May at 9 pm puts a marketing spin on the game from the Asian perspective. It deals with the region’s soccer players as well as their agents and managers.
Ultimate Goal on 23 June at 7 pm will discover the blood and sweat involved in making the 2002 World Cup a reality. The show will feature the man responsible for the incredible floating pitch in Japans Sapporo stadium. The show also looks at the manner in which the Osaka police are being coached in martial arts to cope with rowdy overseas fans.
Football: Business and Passion will air on 23 June at 9 pm and see the manager take centrestage. The programme goes behind the scenes to uncover the scenario of football negotiations, who stays in the team and who gets the boot. Exclusive access and the inside track allow Discovery camera crews to follow the progress of security measures being taken, ticket sales and the construction of stadia
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.
