English Entertainment
AXN celebrates the lunar new year with abundant ratings
MUMBAI: Chinese New Year celebrations started early for AXN! Kicking off an auspicious start to the Year of the Pig, February proved to be a month of great results for AXN in both Singapore and Malaysia. Starting with a big bang, 1 February 2007 saw the finale of the very first The Amazing Race Asia hitting record ratings in Malaysia. Celebrations continued with the special programming stunt during Chinese New Year and with the premiere of the highly-anticipated brand new season of number one crime series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Original Production a B!G Hit – AXN was No. 1 Every Week!
Certainly living up to its claim of being “made in Asia for Asians”, The Amazing Race Asia (TARA), a massive production undertaken by AXN to give Asians the rare opportunity of participating in the Asian version of this four-time Emmy Award-winning reality series, proved to be a huge hit with viewers.
National pride spurred record ratings for the finale, as countrymen rallied behind their daughters and son as two out of the final three teams were represented by Malaysia. Not to be underestimated, The Amazing Race Asia claimed the title for the most-watched series beating all past 10 seasons of the US version!
The entire season of TARA attracted a total of 15 million viewers across Asia, and consistently ranked top in its timeslot amongst international cable channels in Singapore and Malaysia throughout the season.
February B!G Month – AXN Remains Top English Entertainment Channel A line-up of compelling programmes made AXN the leading choice channel during the festive period of Chinese New Year.
Average ratings for the four days, including the busy night of reunion dinners on New Year’s Eve, put AXN as the number one English entertainment channel amongst all cable viewers and cable PMEB viewers for both prime time and full day.
Blockbuster action movies, including Black Hawk Down and Terminator 3, and the highly anticipated “live” telecast of The Amazing Race: All Stars premiere on the morning of 19 February, the second day of Chinese New Year, glued viewers to their seats. A special two-hour premiere of the latest season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on 21 February rounded off the celebrations when it garnered about 22% share of all cable viewers, making AXN the leading international cable channel during its timeslot.
Mr. Ricky Ow, General Manager of SPE Networks – Asia, is delighted with AXN’s pole position, “The fantastic ratings results we achieved in Singapore and Malaysia show that our efforts to connect with the viewers on-air, off-air, online and on-ground have paid off handsomely.
“AXN is the distinct leader in the English entertainment category amongst international cable channels, where we enjoy a huge margin in terms of both Prime Time and Full Day average ratings. As fans of AXN will know, they can expect more exciting programme line-up and surprises from us this year… just keep watching this space!”
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.
