English Entertainment
‘Super Millionaire’ gives ABC a leg up in the ratings
MUMBAI: Star Plus may have decided not to restart the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati but recent ratings show that in the US viewers are still hooked onto this kind of game show format.
ABC aired the debut episode of its new show Super Millionaire with a prize money of $10 million on 22 February. The show averaged 17.5 million viewers and thus became that night?s most-watched programme. Reports indicate that the show held its own against HBO’s highly touted Sex And The City finale. It managed a 5.7 average among adults 18-49.
As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com the format is the same as Millionaire, which used to air on ABC till 2002. Ten finalists compete against each other in the fastest finger round to answer one question. The winner then attempts to navigate 15 multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty on a broad range of topics.
An AP report adds that for the week 16-22 February Super Millionaire finished No. 14 in the standings out of 133 prime-time shows. CBS’ acclaimed crime drama CSI topped the charts with 30.8 million viewers tuning in. In India the show airs on AXN. Fox’s music based reality show American Idol was placed second with 25.1 million viewers. An episode of NBC’s Friends got 24.2 million viewers to give the GE owned broadcaster the third spot.
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.
