English Entertainment
‘The Apprentice’ legal tangle takes a fresh twist
MUMBAI: It is all about the money honey! Reality television has generated ratings by showing the extent of participants’ unadulterated greed for money. It now seems that the people creating and marketing the shows are no different.
A week ago the creator of the reality show The Apprentice Mark Burnett sued entertainment company Madison Road accusing it of telling advertisers that it has exclusive rights to broker agreements to place products on the show. Burnett had accused Madison Road of overcharging advertisers, demanded exorbitant fees and then pocketing money that should have gone to him.
Now Madison Road has filed a countersuit seeking $40 million for defamation and trade libel.
Madison Road disputes the claim in Burnett’s suit that it misrepresented its relationship with Burnett and charged up to 250 per cent more than Burnett’s fee for placements. The nasty fight stems from the two companies’ involvement in product placement deals with the successful NBC show. Most episodes involve contests showcasing brand-name products, such as a battle to see which team could sell more Mars and M&M candy bars.
The Madison Road countersuit cites an e-mail purported to be from Kevin Harris, co-executive producer for Mark Burnett Productions, to Madison Road and AIM Productions, a New York-based product placement firm, asking for a $5 million fee for placements on the third season of The Apprentice.
Madison Road has stated, “Burnett is the 800-pound gorilla who is making fabricated, defamatory and malicious accusations about Madison Road and then spreading those lies to third parties. Burnett is emulating the conniving, unethical and devious behavior that often leads to success for his reality show contestants.
“Madison Road purchased from Mark Burnett’s companies the opportunity for a task sponsorship on The Apprentice on an episode by episode basis, and then marketed and sold those opportunities to sponsors for a fair fee based on the actual success of the programme. There was nothing underhanded about the manner in which Madison Road secured or sold the opportunities.
“It was Burnett — not Madison Road — who drove up the price of getting a product front and center on The Apprentice to as much as $5 million. Then when the market wouldn’t bear his fees he looked for a scapegoat. Indeed it was Madison Road who began questioning the outlandish fees demanded by Burnett’s companies, not the other way around”.
Madison Road has been credited with bringing Procter & Gamble’s Crest, Levi’s and Mars to The Apprentice and those three brands are mentioned in a letter purported to be from Harris thanking Madison Road and AIM for their help securing marketers for The Apprentice’s second season.
Media reports indicate that Burnett filed his lawsuit was filed at the same time his company is expanding the internal team it uses to broker and manage branded-entertainment deals with advertisers for Survivor, The Apprentice, The Contender, the upcoming Rock Star and two upcoming shows starring Martha Stewart.
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.
