English Entertainment
Former ABC programmer to head Yahoo’s media and entertainment division
MUMBAI: Global online giant Yahoo has hired a former ABC television programmer Lloyd Braun to head its media and entertainment division.
Braun was the brains behind HBO’s gangster saga The Sopranos. His brief involves convincing movie, TV and music companies to distribute more content exclusively on Yahoo
The 46-year-old Braun will also try to create original programming for the 90 million visitors a month to the company’s Web sites.
Yahoo has stated that Braun is the right executive to bring a new creative dimension to its plans to provide Web users with services in areas including news, sports, health, finance and games, as well as future areas of entertainment.
Braun left a struggling ABC last April. However ABC went on to hit the jackpot with Desperate Housewives. Braun had come up with the core idea for that show.
Braun noted that coming broadband technology will greatly enhance the opportunities for Yahoo to expand its entertainment options.
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.
