English Entertainment
Greg Beitchman joins CNN International
MUMBAI: One of the world’s biggest news networks, CNN International has boosted its top level line up with Greg Beitchman being roped in from Reuters as vice president for content sales and partnerships. He will be responsible for overseeing and developing the network’s content sales and business on an international level with broadcast and digital being the main priority.
According to the release, his role will include content sales and partnerships, out of home services and licensing deals. Apart from this, he will also be involved with CNN’s NewSource content syndication service. CNN has about a 1000 global broadcast partners.
At Reuters, Beitchman was global head of multimedia content. Commenting on his appointment, CNN International COO Rani R. Raad said in a release, The worlds news consumption habits are evolving, and our business is evolving with that. Our commercial strategy is geared towards ensuring our consumers and partners have access to CNNs best-in-class journalism across all platforms, and Greg is the perfect man to help us deliver that. He is a first-class operator and will make a major contribution to guiding and strengthening our commercial enterprise.
Beitchman has been involved with India over the last many years. During his stint with Reuters he moved to Delhi in 1997 to lead the international news agency’s investment into the news agency ANI (Asian News International). In 2005, he returned to India to spearhead the launch of Indian English news channel Times Now as executive producer and broadcast talent. In 2007, Reuters launched its Indian domain reuters.co.in to cover news about India and its neighbours, which was also led by Beitchman and his team. While in India, he also covered the 26/11 terror attacks at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai for Reuters.
Talking about his appointment Beitchman commented: “In an era when audiences have an almost infinite supply of content, CNN stands out among the world’s most trusted news brands. As our audiences and partners look for innovation in storytelling and commercial models, this is an exciting time to work on strengthening CNN’s commercial proposition internationally.”
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.
