English Entertainment
Star World Premiere HD kick-starts the New Year with brand new offerings
MUMBAI: Star World Premiere HD, India’s premium English entertainment channel is known to bring some of the best and latest English television series. It is the only channel in India to bring all their television shows right after its international telecast. Taking this offering a notch higher, Star World Premiere HD has now started airing the latest shows all seven days of the week, with 4 hours of the most popular shows for audiences to catch every day.
The channel that is home to 70+ new shows and offers over 1000 hours of fresh content to its viewers has acquired some of the most anticipated shows of 2016, day and date, making it ‘the’ channel to look out for in 2016.
Star World Premiere HD will be enticing longstanding fans of the cult sci-fi series – The X-Files, with the all-new The X-Files: Event Series premiering on the channel on 30 January 2016. Marking its momentous return on global television, the series will pick up with a developed plot-line to match new-age conspiracies and technology; not to forget the ever-famous Mulder-Scully pair and what they have come to be 13 years on, on the show.
Ace comedians, Louis C.K. and Zach Galifianakis come together for the first time on television with a brand new comedy, Baskets. The show will be marking its premiere on 24 January 2016 and stars actor and co-creator of the show, Zach as the protagonist Chip Baskets. Audiences that have long known Zach for his role as Alan of the Hangover series will now witness him in an all-new avatar of Chip Baskets. He will be portraying a man aspiring to become a professional clown but has to settle for a gig at the rodeo when he loses the opportunity to attend a prestigious Parisian clown academy.
Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life falls next in line with its premiere on 24 January 2016. The show is an American comedy television series that follows Cooper Barrett (Jack Cutmore-Scott) as he figures out his life beyond hedonistic behavior. It revolves around Barrett, his friends and family as they try finding out the real meaning to life while overcoming complex situations.
The creators of popular series Glee, American Horror Story and Scream Queens bring their new show, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story which will be premiering on Star World Premiere HD on 8 February 2016. The show comprises of an invincible cast of John Travolta, David Schwimmer, Cuba Gooding Jr., Sarah Paulson, Selma Blair, Jordana Brewster, Bruce Greenwood, Nathan Lane and many more. With a distinct and true plot-line, the show focuses on America’s most sensational and publicized criminal hearing – the O.J. Simpson trial, with a riveting look at what really happened behind the scenes from the lawyers’ perspective.
Not last, neither the least, Martin Scorsese’s foray into television will also be marked with his debut show Vinyl premiering on the channel this February. One of the biggest shows on television in 2016, Scorsese has collaborated with rock n roll legend Mick Jagger to produce Vinyl and this will mark the television debut of Jagger’s son James Jagger too alongside prominent actors Bobby Cannavale, Olivia Wilde, Ray Romano amongst others. Set in the 1970s of New York City, Vinyl follows the uproarious character of Richie Finestra as he looks to bring the music genre into a new era, while trying not to let his company fall under or let his work interfere with his drug and alcohol use.
With English television entertainment and Hollywood’s finest on Star World Premiere HD, the channel promises these offerings as just the beginning of an enthralling television-viewing experience.
After all, why hold back when you can walk side by side with the world’s best television series right here on Star World Premiere HD – home to day and date viewing!
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.
