English Entertainment
Zee’s ‘Ticket To Hollywood’ premiere for everyone ‘Bloodshot’ garners 29.03Mn viewers
MUMBAI: In one of the biggest festive offering on television, for the first time, &flix and 11 Zee channels premiered the biggest superhero movie of 2020, Bloodshot in ten languages. Combining the might of Zee with a pan-network property, Ticket To Hollywood, a whopping 29.03Million viewers experienced Hollywood’s cinematic brilliance in their preferred language with the premiere of Bloodshot in November. A first for television, the multi-channel and multi-lingual premiere enabled countless ardent fans to #LeapForth into the exciting world of Hollywood marking yet another milestone for Zee.
Starring the ultimate action hero Vin Diesel, Bloodshot premiered on &flix, the destination of the biggest Hollywood hits along with &PrivéHD, Zee Café, &Pictures, Zee Thirai, Zee Cinemalu, Zee Punjabi, Zee Biskope, Zee Talkies, Zee Picchar, Zee Sarthak and Zee Bangla Cinema. The premiere across garnered support from some of the leading brands with Colgate as the presenting sponsors across 11 channels along with brands like Venky’s Purotein, HUL (Lifeboy), KIA, TVS, Amazon, Sprite and Kelvinator onboard across Zee English cluster channels.
Speaking about the success of the premiere, Zeel premium channels business head Kartik Mahadev said, “Today, Hollywood’s appeal knows no bounds as we have enthusiasts from metros and beyond who share the same level of passion and take to Hollywood as their window to the world. True testimony to this is the findings from &flix’s recent consumer study, ‘Hollywood Is For Everyone’ that sheds light on Hollywood’s growing fandom that cuts across regions and languages. The success of the multi-lingual premiere of Bloodshot further validates this with the premiere garnering immense positive response from both our customers and consumers. With successive Hollywood blockbusters in the pipeline as part of Ticket To Hollywood, we are certain that the property will deliver value to brands and enthrall fans spread across the nation.”
Creating a spectacle like no other, Zee combines the exciting line up of latest Hollywood blockbusters on its English movie channel &flix and the reach of its Indian language movie channels to present ‘Ticket To Hollywood’ – a destination for latest Hollywood blockbusters in Indian languages. The property will see Hollywood’s latest blockbusters airing across Zee channels, dubbed in regional languages. With the successful premiere Bloodshot across Zee channels, ‘Ticket To Hollywood’ will feature other recent superhits like Jumanji-The Next Level, Bad Boys For Life, Charlie’s Angels (2019) among others. With this, the property aims to cater to an evolving Hollywood fan base in India – the unsatiated viewers who crave a larger-than-life Hollywood experience in the language of their choice.
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.
