English Entertainment
Reliance Entertainment Digital has its eye on English entertainment content
Reliance Entertainment Digital CEO Manish Agarwal is pretty excited about his company’s date with MipCom this year. Says he: “We want to understand the market and its offering and how relevant it is for the digital business. We are always in search of some interesting and innovative content.”
For Agarwal, who is into content publishing, participation in Mipcom is likely to become an integral part of doing business, though his company is participating in it for the first time.
“It gives us an opportunity to explore the large variety of content which we need for the various platforms like BigFlix, Zapak etc. We will obviously focus on networking with more content providers and aggregators across the globe,” says he.
Reliance Entertainment Digital which launched its over the top (OTT) service BigFlix last year is sorted in terms of Indian programming and now wants add on international content in more genres and languages.
“We want to expand our offerings to the consumer. Participating in Mipcom will help us explore more opportunities,” he says.
We want to expand our offerings to the consume and participating in Mipcom will help us explore more opportunities believes Manish Agarwal
Agarwal says that an increasing group of young Indian consumers is gorging on digitised content on hand held devices and on their PCs. “It is essential for Indian service providers to experiment with new type of content across genres and content-types. And it is just not that Indians will consume only trailers or paparazzi content, they will also look at different content and so we want to explore with a variety of content,” he highlights.
The focus this year at Mipcom he emphasises will be on acquiring entertainment content – especially that which originates from English speaking nations or with English subtitles.
“This will be entertainment for English speaking audiences, entertainment for masses and for kids. This is the reason we are going not only for Mipcom, but also for Mip Junior,” he informs.
For those visiting Mipcom to sell gaming content, expect the Reliance Entertainment
representative at your stall. “We will also look at gaming content or gaming IPs on which games can be created. So we are aiming at kids entertainment both in gaming and VOD content which caters to everyone or in niche segments in the country,” says he. “In terms of gaming IPs, since we are present across the globe, we will go for any IP which is popular. So we will be hunting for any IP across different markets in order to get a license to create mobile games
The OTT service which delivers its content online to connected devices – a la NetFlix in the US – is looking at stacking up its video-on-demand (VOD) menu. “This can subsume movies-on-demand, TV-serials-on-demand and animations-on-demand. And for gaming again we are looking at the mobile platforms.”
And the company is shopping cheque book in hand. So sellers will indeed be kept busy by this emerging digital giant from India.
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.
