International media companies are beginning to pony up big bucks for a piece of the television action stateside and producers all over Hollywood are abuzz with takeover rumors. One of those rumors came true last week.
Endemol Group, the Dutch television production company responsible for hit shows like “Deal or No Deal” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” signed off on a deal valued at $200 million for VH1 reality show supplier 51 Minds Entertainment.
Endemol is initially taking a 51 percent stake in the L.A.-based company.
The deal expands Endemol’s presence in the US market and extends its programming into the realm of comedy. In return the deal gives 51 Minds the financial strength to expand internationally.
51 Minds Entertainment was formed in a merger of Cris Abrego’s 51 Pictures and Mark Cronin’s Mindless Entertainment.
Working closely with VH1, 51 Minds has placed 20 different series with the network and accounts for more than 85 percent of the streaming video on VH1.com.
“Our intention is to stay on course and continue to provide more hit programming for VH1 while simultaneously expanding to Network Television and new media outlets,” Abrego said. “We will maintain our independent profile while taking advantage of our new international access.”
Image Change
Martin Greenwald, founder and chief executive of Image Entertainment, handed over the reins of the Chatsworth-based movie and music distribution company to long-time senior executive David Borshell last week.
Greenwald resigned as president and CEO April 1, the start of Image’s fiscal year. He will remain chairman of the company. The board also agreed to pay Borshell an annual salary of $425,000 a year, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Details of Greenwald’s departing compensation, if any, were not disclosed.
Image has seen its stock price plummet from a high of $4.50 last October when it was announced that BTP Acquisition Co. would pay $4.40 a share for the movie supplier to a low of about $1.25 a share after BTP failed to come up with financing in February. The company is now seeking $4.2 million in damages from BTP, while BTP is demanding $1.5 million from Image over the failed deal. Greenwald, who founded the home entertainment company 25 years ago, was responsible for crafting the unsuccessful BTP deal.
As former chief operating officer, Borshell was instrumental in building Image’s newly formed digital entertainment department and was credited with maintaining the company’s strategic objectives throughout a hostile merger attempt by Lions Gate Entertainment that was ultimately thwarted.
Out of L.A.
Ben Stein, economist, Nixon speechwriter and actor, has put together a new documentary film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” It explores why academia shuns scientists who study the taboo topic of intelligent design but it finds itself without exposure in L.A.
Randy Slaughter, chief executive of Rocky Mountain Pictures, said that lack of venues in the city proper isn’t a result of the film’s controversial content but merely a timing issue.
“We will eventually be adding more screens, hopefully on the Westside,” said Slaughter, who is in charge of the film’s distribution.
The film is scheduled to open April 18 in several dozen theaters across the country and elsewhere in Southern California.
Some of the scientists spotlighted in the film say that Stein and the film’s producers misled them and made them look foolish after extensive editing.
The claims are reminiscent of some that followed last year’s hit put-on by Sasha Baron Cohen, “Borat.” Cohen pretended to be a television reporter from Kazakhstan and as a result elicited embarrassing revelations from his hapless subjects.
Eugenie C. Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, said she agreed to be interviewed for a film titled “Crossroads.” Scott claims that Stein’s producers told her that the film broadly covered debates about religion, science, and evolution in society. Instead it’s a call to action on developing a scientific foundation to creationism.
Oxford Zoologist Richard Dawkins claims to have been bamboozled as well, saying that Stein caught him off guard and focused almost solely on his writing that characterizes the theory of intelligent design and God as “delusional.”
Stein and the producers at Premise Media Corp. disagree.
“They were all told what the questions would be in advance and were paid well for their time. Very well, I might add,” Stein said. “They knew that they were being filmed, they all signed releases.”
Homecoming
Debbi Gutierrez leaves her post as English-language host of “A Place of Our Own,” the Emmy Award-winning bilingual talk show devoted to caregivers of pre-kindergarten children in May, and will be replaced by Los Angeles native Elizabeth Sanchez, former weekend anchor at ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego.
Studio City-based 44 Blue Productions is responsible for producing “A Place of Our Own,” a PBS talk show that is scripted, filmed and distributed in both Spanish and English using the same crew, albeit different hosts.
Staff reporter Brett Sporich can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 226.
