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| Disney faces latest investor proposal to nominate directors Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 05:15 PM PDT  Walt Disney Co shareholders are expected to vote at its March 18 annual meeting on a resolution that asks the company to allow large shareholders to nominate board members, the latest bid by investor groups to win "proxy access" rights. The Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds and the California State Teachers Retirement System proposed that the board allow owners of at least 3 percent of the company's stock be empowered to nominate up to 20 percent of the board, according to a regulatory filing from Disney on January 24. "Disney is a bellwether company and the vote will get a lot of attention," said Robert McCormick, chief policy officer of proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis, which has advised its clients to vote for the measure. This year, shareholders at as many as 20 companies will consider proxy access proposals, said Patrick McGurn, special counsel to proxy advisory firm ISS that has advised Disney shareholders to approve the measure. Full Story | Top |
| Love story, chronicle of Hurricane Katrina win U.S. book prizes Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 05:09 PM PDT A love story that examines modern attitudes about race, a chronicle of the days after Hurricane Katrina and a biography of Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift won National Book Critics Circle awards on Thursday. The prize for fiction went to "Americanah," the third novel by Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about childhood sweethearts who move to different countries. American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink's "Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital", was awarded the prize for nonfiction, and Leo Damrosch's "Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World" won for biography. Italian scholar Franco Moretti's "Distant Reading" claimed the criticism award and Frank Bidart's "Metaphysical Dog" took the poetry prize. Full Story | Top |
| Hal Douglas, voice of Hollywood movie trailers, dies at 89 Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:28 PM PDT Hal Douglas, a veteran voice-over artist who worked on trailers for films such as "Philadelphia," "Forrest Gump" and "Lethal Weapon," died at the age of 89 last week, his daughter said on Thursday. He passed away on March 7 at his home in Lovettsville, Virginia, surrounded by family after suffering from pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed in 2010. "Hal was known not only for his incomparable voice, which could be heard on thousands of movie trailers, television and radio promos, commercials, documentaries, and as the spokesman for numerous broadcast networks, but also for his warmth, humility, humor, and generosity of spirit," Sarah Douglas said on a memorial website for her father. With his throaty voice, Douglas was one of the top talents in voice-overs for decades. Full Story | Top |
| Comcast deal may offer media companies leverage on fees Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 03:54 PM PDT  By Ronald Grover and Liana B. Baker LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media companies plan to press Comcast Corp for higher fees in the coming year, seeing an opportunity to squeeze better terms from the U.S. cable company as regulators review its planned takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc. Comcast and Time Warner Cable paid nearly $14 billion to content companies last year for rights to distribute their films, television shows and sporting events. Broadcasters and cable television networks have "assignment clauses" in their contracts with Time Warner Cable that require the networks to sign off before Comcast can merge the two cable operators' agreements, according to people who have negotiated agreements in the past. Media executives say most programmers will push for higher rates in return for expanding their deals to cover digital distribution of their content. "Media companies selling programming can be expected to leverage the policy and politics surrounding the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger to extract sizeable and unusual concessions," said Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman of pay TV consultant firm The Carmel Group. Full Story | Top |
| House of Cards, credibility gap blunt China annual TV expose Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 03:22 PM PDT By Adam Jourdan SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Waning popularity and a wounded reputation are likely to dull the edge of China's consumer day TV expose when it airs on Saturday, offering some relief for companies that have in the past taken pains to avoid any fallout from the once-a-year show. The "3.15" show, similar to CBS network's "60 Minutes" in the United States, has often triggered a damage control campaign by the local and global firms it targets and that have included Apple Inc and carmaker Volkswagen AG.[ID:nL3N0C61VD] Consumer rights are sensitive issues in China which has been beset by a series of product safety scandals over the past few years. These scandals are often fanned by the media, and have the potential to go viral and stick around: KFC-parent Yum Brands Inc has struggled to quell anger over Chinese media reports in late 2012 about excessive antibiotic use by a few KFC suppliers in China. But the show, like other programs by state-run China Central Television, is struggling to click with younger viewers hooked to online programming and imports such as British detective show "Sherlock" and U.S. political drama "House of Cards". Full Story | Top |
| Showtime's 'Billions' pits hedge fund titans against U.S. attorney Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 03:21 PM PDT Will "Billions" be to Wall Street what "House of Cards" is to Washington? Premium cable network Showtime said on Thursday it ordered a pilot of a fictional drama that "focuses on the collision and, at times, collusion between an aggressive U.S. attorney in New York and some of the richest hedge fund billionaires in the country." The script is by New York Times columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Brian Koppelman and David Levien, writing partners on films such as "Ocean's Thirteen" and "Rounders." Sorkin wrote the 2009 book "Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Finance System - and Themselves." Showtime said "Billions" was its first pilot pickup of the year, but did not give details of its plans for what it called "a new complex, contemporary drama." The CBS Corp-owned channel has made waves in television drama with hits such as "Homeland" and "Dexter," but faces competition from Time Warner Inc's HBO and more recently, Netflix Inc, the online streaming company behind the acclaimed political thriller "House of Cards." Netflix does not release viewership figures for "House of Cards," but many in Washington's political circles have been mesmerized by the skullduggery of the fictitious Vice President Frank Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey. Full Story | Top |
| '12 Years a Slave' Oscar winner spotlights rock legend Jimi Hendrix Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 01:43 PM PDT  By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - At nearly the same time filming of "12 Years a Slave" began in Louisiana, the man who would win an Academy Award for writing its screenplay was in Dublin to start shooting his movie about the year that changed the life of rock guitar icon Jimi Hendrix. "Jimi: All Is by My Side" from writer and director John Ridley was shown this week at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas. "There is this added thing now, and people will see it through that prism of the Oscar," Ridley, who won the award for best adapted screenplay for "12 Years a Slave," said in an interview this week. The movie, starring the hip hop duo Outkast's André Benjamin as Hendrix, looks at a year in the life of the rock legend when he was an unknown backup guitarist living in New York who moved to London and became a budding star. Full Story | Top |
| Facebook rolls out video ads, aims to capture part of TV-marketing budgets Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 12:48 PM PDT  Facebook Inc will allow more marketers to run video advertisements on its website, provided the world's No.1 social network deem them to be of high-enough quality. Facebook and social media rivals like Twitter are increasingly trying to grab a slice of lucrative TV-marketing budgets as they try to sustain rapid growth. That market is considered crucial to supporting Facebook's growing market valuation and poses a potential long-term threat to traditional TV networks. Facebook has moved cautiously to avoid annoying users. Full Story | Top |
| Boom in on-demand video added into UK inflation benchmark Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:36 AM PDT By Andy Bruce LONDON (Reuters) - With millions of people watching the latest movie blockbusters and television box sets online, Britain's statistics office has added video streaming services to the list of things it monitors for inflation. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Thursday it will add services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video to the consumer price index (CPI), as part of a new category combining DVD rental and on-demand subscriptions. Updates to the CPI basket every year are one gauge of changing tastes among British consumers. Reflecting changing viewing habits, the ONS said the new category would replace DVD rental internet subscriptions. Full Story | Top |
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