Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros is among ‘most audacious in history’ • FRANCE 24 English

Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros is among ‘most audacious in history’ • FRANCE 24 English

Time now for our international press review. And while the bidding war is on with Paramount launching a hostile bid for Warner Brothers, the press having a lot to say about that and depict is here to take us through it. Well, Eve, this is from the Hollywood Reporter here. Its headline reads, “It’s a bidding war. Paramount attempts and hostile offer for Warner Brothers. The drama of this takeover is perhaps ironically worthy of a uh TV series on Netflix. Paramount launching a hostile $18 billion takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery, one of the most storied studios in Hollywood. It came after the WBD board voted unanimously for Netflix’s rival cash and stock deal worth uh $82.7 billion. Now, the Financial Times takes us into the scene behind the scenes of what it calls one of the most what it calls one of the most audacious hostile bids in history, Paramount Finances, coming from chief executive uh David Ellison’s uh billionaire father uh Larry Ellison, Oracle founder, but also Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and a US private equity fund run by Jared Kushner, who is of course Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Paramount uh reportedly makes made six proposals over 12 weeks to M WBD’s board, but a person close to the company is quoted as saying that they were gas lit and then ghosted as uh Warner Brothers courted Netflix instead. One sticking point apparently was the Middle Eastern sovereign funds which Warner Brothers shareholders worried would not pass a test with a US committee that’s in charge of uh reviewing potential national security risks from foreign investment. In any case, uh Deadline says uh uh that Paramount tried to sweeten the deal by promising to release 30 at least 30 films annually. Uh an attempt perhaps to allay fears that a Netflix takeover would favor TV stream and streaming releases over film and theatrical release. Okay. Any interesting opinion pieces on all that? Yeah, absolutely. There’s one actually from the editorial editors of the Wall Street Journal today uh who uh say here that we should just let Warner’s shareholders decide uh in this uh editorial uh the paper argues that uh whoever that the shareholders of Warner Brothers will have to nonetheless navigate the mercurial whims of Donald Trump who absolutely wants to be involved in the deal. Both CEOs of Netflix and Paramount have courted Trump like I quote contestants on the bachelorette. Okay, moving on. And well, Israel says that the yellow line demarcation that has been put in place across Gaza since October is now a new border. Well, it’s part, as you mentioned, it’s part of Donald Trump’s uh uh 20point peace plan that commits the Israel uh Israeli military to progressively hand over Palestinian territory to an international security force until they have completely withdrawn from Gaza. Now on Monday the chief gen of general staff uh Al Zamir said Israel would hold on to its current military positions which essentially give it control of the border crossing to Egypt but also a significant part of uh agricultural land. Now there’s a really interesting article from Alud Alra a panabler uh Londonbased paper here. What you see here are three different maps that trace uh the evolution of the Gaza Strip and how Israel has continued to divide the Gaza Strip between 1948 and today. The headline here uh reading the yellow line of death. The first map that you see uh here is uh shows the areas carved out of Gaza following the roads agreement of 1949. The second one in the middle there highlights the yellow line as it appeared uh during the Israel Army’s Israeli army’s deployment last October. The third map there uh shows the Israeli army’s withdrawal according to the Trump plan and essentially shows that Gazins would only have this small slice here about 20% uh of their land. Israel would therefore hold more than the 53% that it declares to have of the Gaza Strip. Buffering baffling stuff depos meanwhile today looking at the growing Japanese community living in India. Yeah, it seems quite improbable but it is indeed uh uh quite prevalent. Uh it must be said though uh there are only about 8,000 Japanese citizens living in India as of 2024. It is of course barely a drop in the ocean for India’s 1.4 billion strong population. But nonetheless it is an increase of fourfold from 2005. Now many Japanese expats came for work with Japanese companies like Panasonic or Toyota who are are very present in India. Many stayed and the expat presence has grown particularly in the city of Gurang a financial and technical hub. There are more and more Japanese restaurants. There are rooms to play ma jang while Indians now are becoming increasingly hooked on anime culture and studio Gibli dreamscapes east meets subcontinent in this micro expat community. Okay. And finally from you the world’s first ever AI reality TV show. Tell me more. I heard the sigh in your voice Eve. Indeed it launched. I’m prejudging it. I am. Yeah. It launched on uh YouTube on Monday and it is as the London Evening Standard explains the first ever all AI reality TV show. Now it’s uh it was launched by Amation Studios. It’s a reality series TV show where all the contestants are virtual. There are six contestants. It’s called Nonplayer Combat. It’s a 4 episode series and I’ll see if I can uh pull up the trailer for you here. It’s a four episode uh series. Uh it’s basically a hyper realistic fight to the death competition between six characters who are hunting each other and facing off threats like polar bears and venomous snakes. It’s said to be a sort of blend of Hunger Games, Fortnite, and the traitors. uh the evening standard explaining that each contestant is programmed with a human backstory uh past lovers, personal tragedies, and they also face what humans would face in a similar situation like hunger and fatigue. Uh among the contestants, a murderer, a Navy Seal, and a content creator who are all parachuted down into the jungle. Eve. Okay, lots of interesting questions arising from that. Jica, thanks a lot for that look at the international press.

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, December 9: The bidding war has begun after Paramount launched a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, days after shareholders accepted a Netflix deal. Who will prevail? Also: we learn about the growing Japanese community in India. Plus: YouTube launches the first ever AI reality TV series: a “Hunger Games”-style fight to the death.
#Paramount #WarnerBros #Netflix

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