English Entertainment
Fox’s reality trail to lead to ‘The Casino’
MUMBAI: Fox will replace their popular music themed reality show American Idol with another reality themed showThe Casino which is being filmed in HDTV. The show will kick off on 8 June.
The brains behind Survivor Mark Burnett will produce the show. The show will comprise of 13 episodes and will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the real-life dramas that unfold at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, after its new owners take over the business and attempt to bring back the glory of its “Rat Pack” heyday.
Burnett was quoted in a company release saying, “Las Vegas is like a magnet. The city attracts people from all over the world with two things in their mind — getting rich quickly and having as much fun as possible in a short period of time. It is the magnetism of Las Vegas that we will try to capture on camera, as we tell the story of two young entrepreneurs who found remarkable success during the Internet boom and are now living out their dreams of owning a Las Vegas casino.”
The young entrepreneurs in question are Timothy Poster and Thomas Breitling. They sold their start-up Travelscape.com to Expedia in 2000 making them millionaires. Now they have used a part of their fortunes to fulfill their life-long dream by purchasing The Casino.
Poster added, “Our goal is to provide customers with the type of service that they cannot find anywhere else in Las Vegas. We intend to give our patrons the type of service that was so common in years past, but has been slowly disappearing with the growth of the mega-resorts. Vegas casinos used to be a fantasy land for gamblers and this is what we intend to provide.
” It is all about knowing customers by their names, knowing what kind of whiskey they drink, what kind of cigarettes they smoke, and what type of suites they prefer – and giving it to them. This will be the focus of our business”.
The show which will be produced in HDTV in association with Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems will however go beyond the challenges facing Breitling and Poster and explore the personal dramas unfolding among some of the 3,000 employees inside this world. They include cocktail waitresses, pit bosses, security, management and entertainers. Of course one of the things that separates The Casino from other reality shows is that there are no prizes up for grabs.
Meanwhile a report in adage.com indicates that the show will cost Fox over $ one million per episode. There are no product placement or sponsorship deals as yet. Murdoch’s broadcaster has to be careful that the show does not cross the decency line what with the the Federal Communications Commission recently coming down hard on Viacom’s radio station Clear Channel.
The report adds that the show has been structured so that each one-hour installment will contain complete stories that are more DVD- and syndication-friendly than episodic reality TV. At the moment, advertisers are said to be skepticasl about the fact that the participants will simply be the unglamorous middle class Americans who merely wait for the free buffet meals.
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.
