English Entertainment
Vh1 to live telecast Grammy Awards 2016
MUMBAI: Vh1 will live telecast the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in India from the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California on 16 February at 7.30 am.
The channel will air a repeat at 9 pm on the same evening.
The 58th edition of the Grammys will witness rapper LL Cool J host the evening for the fifth consecutive time. This year’s awards will be graced with performances by artistes such as 11 time Grammy nominee Kendrick Lamar, seven time nominee The Weekend and 10 time Grammy award winner Adele, to name a few.
“After an overwhelming response to the airing of Golden Globe Awards, we take pride in carrying forward the awards fever ever further with simulcast of the Grammys on Vh1. Keeping the promise of showcasing only the best of English entertainment, we are excited to showcase the grand edition of the biggest music night in the world for our viewers once again,” said Viacom18 EVP and head of English and youth entertainment Ferzad Palia.
This year, Lifetime Achievement Award recipient David Bowie will be honoured with a tribute by six-time Grammy winner and current nominee Lady Gaga. The tribute will mark Lady Gaga’s fourth appearance on the Grammy Awards telecast. She has been nominated for the category Best Song Written for Visual Media for Till It happens to You with Diane Warren.
This year, Kendrick Lamar leads nominations with 11, followed by Taylor Swift and The Weekend. Additionally, music producer Max Martin received six nominations and engineer Tom Coyne, rapper Drake, and engineers Serban Ghenea and John Hanes each earned five nominations.
The channel has leveraged the Grammys through various associations and tie-ups. Vh1 has associated with 15 hangouts across 10 cities in India, including Hard Rock Café to screen the awards in 15 outlets across eight cities. Jean Claude Biguine has been roped in to create the Grammy red carpet look. Vh1 will also be conducting college activation where a Grammy branded car will be travel to college campuses across Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.
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.
