English Entertainment
Golden Globe Awards gets best viewership in 10 years
MUMBAI: Sunday’s telecast of the 71st annual Golden Globe Awards seems to have exceeded all expectations. If numbers are to be believed the gala drew its best audience in the past decade with 20.9 million people tuning in to watch the Hollywood awards show, Comcast Corp-owned network NBC stated on Monday.
The three-hour awards show, which honors the year’s achievements in film and television, rose six percent in total viewers compared to last year and was up two percent in the 18-49 age group most coveted by advertisers, according to early figures from Nielsen Media Research.
The show hosted for a second consecutive year by comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler was received well once again as the Golden Globe Awards beat other televised ceremonies such as the Emmys and People’s Choice Awards for viewers. The duo have already signed on to host next year’s Golden Globes.
Big film winners at the Golden Globes, which are handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, were historical slavery drama 12 Years a Slave and 1970s corruption romp American Hustle.
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.
