A+E Networks Restructures In Asia As Saugato ‘Shoggy’ Banerjee Exits

AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan offered a wish for labor peace, but she also said the dual WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes wouldn’t begin to threaten the company’s programming supply until “well into 2024.”

AMC Networks posted a 17% decrease in domestic advertising revenue in the second quarter, preventing the company from meeting Wall Street revenue expectations.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer AMC Networks reported its second-quarter 2023 earnings Friday, revealing it had lost 500,000 more subscribers across its portfolio of niche streamers and was down 17% in U.S. ad sales for the April 1-June 30 period. AMC Networks lost 300,000 subscribers across its streaming services in Q1, falling from 11.8 million at the end of 2022 to 11.5 million by March 31.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan film festival’s Asian Project Market is set to welcome several of the region’s top auteurs either as producers or prospective directors at its next edition in October. APM organizers Thursday unveiled 30 projects to be presented during a four-day round of one-on-one meetings and pitching sessions. India’s Rima Das (“Tora’s Husband”) will pitch “Malti My Love.” Japan’s Fukada Koji (“Love Life,” “Harmonium”) will pitch “Nagi Notes.” Indonesia’s Makbul Mubarak (“Autobiography”) will pitch “Watch It Burn.” Among the successful producers adding their weight to APM contenders are: Patrick Mao Huang (“Moneyboys,” “Tiger Stripes”) selling Peter Ho’s project “Appetite for Desire”; Jeremy Chua (“Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” “Autobiography”), pitching Rafael Manuel’s “Filipinana”; Ichiyama Shozo (“Ash Is Puirest White”) pitching Song Fang’s Japan-China collaboration “Full Moon”; Fran Borgia (“A Land Imagined,” “Tiger Stripes”) pitching Aakash Chhabra’s “I’ll Smile in September”; and Tan Chui Mui (“Barbarian Invasion”) pitching Jian Xiaoshuan’s “To Kill A Mongolian Horse.” The project market and the Asian Contents & Film Market are both scheduled to operate Oct.

Fox News’ retooled primetime lineup topped rivals in July, but all cable news networks saw audience erosion versus the same month a year ago.

Leonine’s Fred Kogel To Be Feted In Zurich

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Short-form video platform TikTok enjoyed a huge increase in viewership in the first six months of the year in Southeast Asia, contributing to a sudden halt to the overall growth of premium (SVOD) video, according to a new report. Data from AMPD and analysis from consultancy firm Media Partners Asia show that TikTok is increasingly a major driver of viewership growth on mobile and web platforms in the region, responsible for over 70% of growth in streaming minutes over the past two years.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Asia Contents Awards, held as part of the Busan International Film Festival since 2019, is to join forces with the Global OTT Awards to form a wider-reaching event. The merged events are to be known under the ungainly abbreviation ACA & G.OTT Awards and will be co-hosted by South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and Busan Metropolitan City authorities. The ceremony will be held in Busan on Sunday Oct.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest traditional media company to reorganize its advertising-sales team to meet the demands of a rapidly shifting market. The media conglomerate said it would rework its ad sales staff, overseen by Chief U.

There have been 9 news anchors that have been fired or let go this year from their networks…and most are because of a controversy.

Editor’s note: Marcus Ryder is a veteran UK and international news journalist and editor, academic and executive. He is among the most-respected figures working in British media diversity and his campaigning work as the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity has been influential throughout British entertainment circles. Yesterday, he was named CEO of the Film and TV Charity. Like our recent guest columnist John Ridley, Ryder harbors concerns companies are turning their backs on anti-racism and diversity pledges made since the death of George Floyd but here he argues the issues date back much further than that.

The nominations are out for the 44th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, and CNN leads the way with a commanding 45 noms ahead of Vice (30) and ABC and PBS (26 each). See the list of nominees in all 62 categories below or click here.

EXCLUSIVE: A+E Networks today announced a new career training program that will further opportunity and BIPOC representation in the industry and underscores the media group’s unwavering commitment to DEI initiatives. The Career Accelerator from A+E Factual Studios, launched in collaboration with Reel Works and their MediaMKRS workforce development program, welcomes an inaugural class of eight trainees to receive on-the-job experience and learn through a custom curriculum created by A+E. Reel Works’ MediaMKRS program aims to diversify the media landscape and create equitable solutions to barriers to entry into the entertainment industry by training and credentialing early-career professionals.

Warner Bros Discovery has announced the first ever localized version of the Tom And Jerry series, featuring the famous cat and mouse duo as they take their rivalry to Singapore.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Tom and Jerry,” one of the most iconic animation franchises in history, is to get a localized new version made with Southeast Asian audiences in mind. The cat and mouse duo will take their chases to the streets, buildings and cityscapes of Singapore in a 7 x 3-minute series of shorts, produced locally in Asia, and in association with Warner Bros. Animation.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. At this point, it’s old news that cable has become all but obsolete in the age of streaming.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Here’s an example of just how chaotic things are in Hollywood these days: Disney CEO Bob Iger’s recent remarks that the company’s linear TV assets “may not be core” to its business were buried under the lede of his comments that SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are not being “realistic” in their contract negotiations last week. But now that a small bit of the initial dual strike dust has settled, sources inside and outside of Disney are asking what reaction Iger was looking to provoke by announcing Disney’s intention to “open-minded and objective about the future of those businesses,” which include broadcast network ABC as well as cablers FX, Disney Channel, Nat Geo and Freeform, among others. (Not ESPN, which is run by Jimmy Pitaro under a separate segment of Disney’s business from its other TV and streaming assets.)

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Bethenny Frankel says reality stars should take a page out of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes and unionize. She says she believes reality stars should be earning residual-like payments when their series become hits and are replayed by networks and streamers across multiple platforms. Frankel shot to fame on the original “Real Housewives of New York.” She says she was paid $7,250 for the first season, but has never received any compensation based on the show’s massive success. She has a starred in a variety of reality series since “RHONY,” including “Bethenny Getting Married,” “Bethenny and Frederick” and “Bethenny Every After.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean TV series and films are increasing still further their hold on streaming audiences across East Asia. They accounted for half of viewing time in the first half of the year, according to new third-party research. Korean-made premium VOD content captured 50% of SVOD viewership and 42% of freemium viewership between January and June 2023, with a record 58 million VOD users tuning in nine East Asian territories (Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam), according to Singapore-based research and consultancy firm Media Partners Asia. The analysis is based on the measured media consumption activity of 40,000 Asia Pacific consumers, conducted by AMPD, the analysis firm’s sister company.

EXCLUSIVE: The UK has a new South Asian-focused film talk show.