English Entertainment
US government spokes media majors’ expansion plans, not to appeal court ruling
MUMBAI: It can be called a major setback for US media conglomerates and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Bush administration last week opted not to appeal against a lower court’s decision that barred the easing of regulations that would make it trouble free for companies to expand and hold larger market shares.
While, the FCC had tried to ease media ownership restrictions, the US Court of Appeals said that it had failed to sufficiently justify the limits it set. Media companies planned to question whether the ruling was constitutional and hence the FCC refrained from joining in that effort.
A media report said that while News Corp.’s Fox, Viacom Inc.’s CBS, General Electric Co.’s NBC, Tribune Co and many other companies had until today (31 January) to decide whether to appeal the ruling, the decision by acting solicitor general Paul Clement makes it less likely the Supreme Court will agree to review the decision. Also a separate Supreme Court appeal was to be filed today by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which represents 1,100 local TV stations.
The restrictions have been brought about so as to prevent a few companies from being all pervasive in the media scene.
Media Access Project president and CEO Andrew Jay Schwartzman was quoted in a media report as saying that this was another indication that the broad and bipartisan public opposition to media concentration has become too powerful to be ignored. “Without support from the government, it is very unlikely that the Supreme Court agree to review last June’s appeals court decision throwing out the FCC’s media ownership deregulation policies. That is why the major TV networks and largest newspaper publishers in the country aggressively lobbied the administration to join in seeking Supreme Court,” Schwartzman was quoted as saying.
On 2 June, 2003, the FCC had relaxed old rules restricting media ownership, which permitted companies to buy more television stations and own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same city.
If the FCC had had its way, a single company could have owned TV stations that reached 45 per cent of US households. What is operative currently is that the earlier 35 per cent limit was taken off the table when Congress in 2004 set the audience reach ceiling at 39 per cent by a statute.
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.
