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Tag: Oscar Nomination

  • Viacom’s Media Networks revenue up 4.4 per cent; adjusted diluted EPS up 7.5 per cent

    Viacom’s Media Networks revenue up 4.4 per cent; adjusted diluted EPS up 7.5 per cent

    BENGALURU:  Viacom Inc (Viacom) reported a 4.4 per cent revenue growth for its Media Networks segment to $2654 million for its first quarter ended 31 December, 2014 (Q1-2015, current quarter) from $2541 million in the corresponding year ago quarter (Q1-2014).  ‘Adjusted operating income before tax’ from the segment dropped fractionally by 0.9 per cent to $1104 million in Q1-2015 from the $1114 million reported in Q1-2014.

     

    The company reported an 8 per cent increase in ‘adjusted diluted EPS’ of $1.29 in Q1-2015 against $1.2 reported for Q1-2015. Adjusted Net Earnings totalled $538 million (includes a loss of $24 million due to pension settlement) down 1.6 per cent from $547 million in the year ago quarter.

     

    Viacom executive chairman Sumner M. Redstone said, “Viacom’s powerful entertainment brands continue to lead the way in reaching global audiences with groundbreaking content. Our outstanding management team has positioned Viacom for continued success.”

     

    Viacom president and CEO Philippe Dauman added, “Viacom’s focus on developing popular franchise properties and constantly expanding our growing international presence drove solid top line results and record earnings per share this quarter. We continued to deliver increased revenues in our media networks operations driven by steady growth in affiliate revenues, and also benefited from Paramount Pictures’ Oscar-nominated Interstellar and our very successful company-wide franchise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

     

    “The media business is evolving faster than ever, but our mission remains unchanged: to continually develop more and better entertainment programming and deliver it to our engaged audiences on every screen and on every platform worldwide. To maintain our leadership position, we will continue to innovate and to manage our business as effectively and efficiently as possible, embracing change and adopting new technologies to better measure and monetize our content and meet industry-wide challenges. Viacom is financially strong and extremely well positioned for the future, with the talent and the creativity to grow our core business and continue to deliver increasing value to our investors”, informed Dauman.

     

    Results and Revenues

     

    Viacom reported a 7.9 per cent drop in profit after tax (PAT) for Viacom and non-controlling interests in Q1-2015 to $513 million (excludes a loss of $24 million due to pension settlement) from $547 million in Q1-2014. Operating income fell 2.6 per cent to $935 million from $960 million in the corresponding year ago quarter.

     

    The company’s total revenues were up 4.6 per cent in Q1-2015 to $3344 million from $3197 million in Q1-2014. Revenues from the other segment that contributes to Viacom revenues – Filmed Entertainment were up 5.7 per cent in Q1-2015 to $720 million from $681 million in Q1-2015. Adjusted operating loss from this segment fell in Q1-2015 to $60 million from $74 million in the year ago quarter.

     

    Media Networks

     

    Revenues from Viacom’s major segment – Media Networks have been reported above. Three streams contribute to Viacom’s Media Networks segment – Advertising; Affiliate fees; and Ancillary. All the three reported increase in revenue.

     

    Media Networks ‘Advertisement’ stream’s revenue in Q1-2015 at $1367 million was 3.2 per cent more y-o-y than the $1325 million in Q1-2014.  ‘Affiliate fees’ went up 6.2 per cent in the current quarter to $1132 million from $1066 million in the year ago quarter. Revenues from the ‘Ancillary’ stream increased 3.3 per cent to $155 million in Q1-2015 from $150 million in Q1-2014.

     

    The company says that domestic affiliate revenues rose 8 per cent and worldwide affiliate revenues grew 6 per cent, primarily due to rate increases. Domestic advertising revenues declined 6 per cent, reflecting lower ratings. Worldwide advertising revenues rose 3 per cent, reflecting a 60 per cent increase in international advertising revenues driven by contributions from Channel 5, which was acquired by Viacom in September 2014. The 4.4 per cent increase in Media Networks revenues includes an unfavourable 1 per cent impact of foreign exchange.

     

    Filmed Entertainment

     

    Revenues from Viacom’s Filmed Entertainment segment improved 5.7 per cent in Q1-2015 to $720 million from $681 million in the corresponding year ago quarter.  Four streams contribute to Viacom’s Filmed Entertainment segment – theatrical; home entertainment; license fees; and ancillary. While revenues from the license fees stream fell, revenues from the other three streams improved in Q1-2015 as compared to Q1-2014.

     

    Revenues from the ‘Theatrical’ stream increased 6.3 per cent to $316 million in the current quarter from $276 million in Q1-2014. The ‘Home Entertainment’ stream revenues in Q1-2015 improved by 16.2 per cent to $316 million from $272 million in the corresponding quarter of last year. As mentioned above, revenues from the License Fees stream fell 9.1 per cent to $189 million from $208 million. Revenues from the ‘Ancillary’ stream increased 9.5 per cent in Q1-2015 to $46 million from $42 million in Q1-2015.

     

    Viacom says that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which was released theatrically in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2014 remained a strong performer in the current quarter, complementing the current quarter releases and helping to drive a 5.7 per cent increase in theatrical revenues and a 16.2 per cent gain in home entertainment revenues. Home entertainment revenues reflect two film releases in the current quarter, compared with none in the same prior year period. License fees declined 9.1 per cent resulting from the mix of available titles.

     

    Stock Repurchase Program

     

    For the quarter ended 31 December, 2014, Viacom repurchased 10.2 million shares under its stock repurchase program, for an aggregate purchase price of $750 million. As of 28 January, 2015, Viacom had $5.62 billion remaining in its $20 billion stock repurchase program. As of 31 December, 2014, Viacom had 407 million shares of common stock outstanding says the company.

  • ‘Gravity’ and ‘American Hustle’ lead the 2014 Oscar Nominations

    ‘Gravity’ and ‘American Hustle’ lead the 2014 Oscar Nominations

    MUMBAI: The 86th Academy Awards nominations were announced on the morning of 16 January in Beverly Hills, Calif. The nominations were led by the 3-D space odyssey Gravity and the con artist caper American Hustle, both with 10 nominations. The harrowing historical epic – 12 Years a Slave trailed closely with nine nominations.

     

    The three are among the nine films nominated for Best Picture. The other nominees are Captain Phillips, ‘Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Nebraska, The Wolf of Wall Street and Philomena.

     

    The best director nominees are David O. Russell for American Hustle, Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity, Alexander Payne for Nebraska, Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave, and Martin Scorsese for Paramount’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

     

    The Best Actor nominees include Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave, Bruce Dern for Nebraska, Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street, Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club and Christian Bale for American Hustle. The 77-year-old Dern is an Oscar nominee for the second time, 35 years after his nomination for Hal Ashby’s Coming Home. 

     

    The Best Actress nominees are Amy Adams for American Hustle, Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine, Sandra Bullock for Gravity, Judi Dench for Philomena and Meryl Streep for August: Osage County. With her nomination, Streep pads her record for most acting nominations. This is her 18th nod, including three wins, the last for 2011’s The Iron Lady.

     

    Woody Allen scored his record 16th screenwriting nomination for Blue Jasmine. Also up for original screenplay is American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, Her and Nebraska. In the adapted screenplay category are Before Midnight, Captain Phillips, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave and The Wolf of Wall Street.

     

    Pixar, usually a mainstay in the Best Animation category, wasn’t in the list this time. Monsters University, however, ruled the segment with Frozen, The Wind Rises, Despicable Me 2, The Croods and Ernest & Celestine.

     

    The first original song finalist announced was the title song from a rookie film called Alone Yet Not Alone in the mix with U2, Pharrell Williams, Karen O and the traditional Disney entry.

  • Eileen Brennan loses battle with cancer

    Eileen Brennan loses battle with cancer

    MUMBAI: Eileen Brennan, the ‘Private Benjamin’ star who is best known as the tormentor of Goldie Hawn’s character in the film passed away at her home in Burbank, California after losing her battle with bladder cancer.

    Brennan earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in ‘Private Benjamin‘ and won an Emmy for reprising the part in the TV version of the movie. She also received Emmy nominations for her guest roles in TV series including Will & Grace in which she portrayed Zandra .

  • ‘Water’ to finally make it to Indian theatres

    ‘Water’ to finally make it to Indian theatres

    NEW DELHI: After bagging an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language category and being theatrically released in 57 countries, including the United Kingdom and Denmark, and having already brought in $ 5.6 million at the North American box office where it played in 150 theatres, Deepa Mehta’s Water will finally be seen in Indian theatres early next month.

    The renowned director told a press conference in the Capital yesterday that the John Abraham-Lisa Ray-Seema Biswas starrer was being released on 9 March all over the country.
    The film figured among the final five nominees for the ‘Best Foreign Language Film Category’ for the Oscars beating Indian entry Rang De Basanti. It went to the Oscars as a Canadian entry. The Oscars are being presented on 25 February and will air live on Star Movies.

    The film is the third in the trilogy of films by Deepa Mehta after Fire and 1947 Earth, and deals with the plight of widows in the India of the 1930s. Fire tackled lesbianism while Earth dealt with the subject of India’s partition.

    Set against Mahatma Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience movement of 1938, Water is a deeply moving tale of three women and their uprising against gender injustice and servitude in the ‘widow houses’ of India. The film’s release in India has been made possible by BR Films, a distribution firm owned by filmmaker Ravi Chopra.

    Speaking at the press meet, Chopra said his decision to take up the release of the film in India was not impelled by the film winning an Oscar nomination. “The decision to release the film in India was made before the film bagged the Oscar nomination,” Chopra said. He added: ”It is a very cute film, a beautiful love story. It is a film which has won accolades and box office success galore in the US and in this sense made India proud in the West. This is all the more reason why I felt people in India should see this film.”

    The theatrical release for the film in India comes almost seven years after protests by fundamentalists forced the filmmaker to suspend its shooting in Varanasi and abandon the project. The protestors alleged that the film was “anti-Hindu” and the sets of the film were set on fire by radical Hindu protesters who also burned Mehta’s effigy in the streets and threatened the director. Hundreds of army troops were deployed to protect the cast and crew but the production was finally forced to shut down.

    The film was revived four years later with a different cast. John Abraham replaced Bollywood star Akshay Kumar while model-turned-actor Lisa Ray took the place of Nandita Das. The shooting of the film was undertaken in Sri lanka in 2005 though the locale is shown as Varanasi.

    Asked about the controversy surrounding the film, Chopra said, ”In the film, Deepa Mehta is talking about something that happened in India in the 1930s. One can differ with the director’s take on the hapennings, but nobody can deny that it happened. As an Indian I, after watching the film, did not feel that the film hurts Indian sensibilities in any way.”

    Initially, the film will be released with about 100 prints all over India, including nine in Delhi. ”The film will initially be released in theatres in metros like New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Later, depending on the response, we will take it to smaller centers,” Chopra said.

    Mehta said “winning a nomination at the Oscars is itself a matter of pride. from hereon it does not matter whether the film eventually wins an Oscar.” The film has been shortlisted along with Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico), After The Wedding (Denmark), Days of Glory and the German Cold War drama The Lives of Others.

    John Abraham said, “Deepa Mehta is an actor’s director. She understands her actors’ sensibilities and projects her characters very well. In fact, I am proud to say that finally I have a Deepa Mehta’s film on my CV.”

    Released by Fox Searchlight in the US in April last year, Water went on to become one of the best reviewed films of the year, and the highest grossing Hindi-language drama
    ever released in North America. It received the Freedom of Expression award from the National Board of Review, was named one of the top ten best pictures by the New York Film Critics online and received their humanitarian award.

    Besides the Oscars nominations for Best Foreign Language film, Water has earlier recieved nine nominations and three awards at the 26th annual Genie awards (Canada’s Oscars), including an award for Seema Biswas for ‘Outstanding Actress in a leading Role’, ‘Achievement in Music-Original Score’ award for Mychael Danna and ‘Achievement in Cinematography’ award for Giles Nuttgens.

    The film also won for Deepa Mehta the Best Director and Lisa Ray the Best Actress award in the 2005 Vancouver Film Critics awards and recieved a nomination for Best Canadian Film.