English Entertainment
Nat Geo licenses docu ‘Tsunami: Killer Wave’
MUMBAI: National Geographic Television International (NGTI) has issued licenses for its documentary Tsunami: Killer Wave to a number of broadcasters, globally.
These include ZDF Arte in France and Germany, DRS in Switzerland, ORF in Austria, YLE in Finland, TV2 in Norway, SBS in Belgium, PT Lativi in Indonesia and the European feed of National Geographic Television International. NGTI will be donating a percentage of the licence fees of this show to the Tsunami appeal. National Geographic Television & Film has also started work on a new Tsunami programme.
Tsunami: Killer Wave has been in demand since the Tsunami natural disaster struck South East Asia. Broadcasters are seeking to support their news coverage of the natural disaster and explore the science behind this major catastrophe with more in-depth features.
The documentary follows tsunami scientists across the globe as they reconstruct the effects of past tsunamis and decipher the threats posed by future ones. It uses historical footage, photographs and interviews with tsunami survivors to paint a picture of a natural disaster that has been wreaking havoc for thousands of years.
This show has also achieved a degree of international fame as it was the one watched by Abdul Razzak, who is credited with saving 1500 of his neighbours on the remote Indian island of Tarasa Dwip. Razzak was a big fan of the National Geographic Channel. When his watchtower at India’s Port Management Board started shaking, he correctly deduced what was happening from his viewing of the show. He was able to alert five villages and this small good news story was covered in media around the globe.
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.
