SEC: Celebs Rumors

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Digital World Acquisition Corp., the blank-check company that has proposed merging with Donald Trump’s media company, said it fired chairman and CEO Patrick Orlando. On March 19, the company’s board of directors terminated Orlando from his positions as chairman and CEO, DWAC disclosed in an SEC filing Wednesday. Orlando remains a director of the company. “Due to the unprecedented headwinds faced by the company, the board agreed it was in the best interest of its shareholders to select a new management team to execute an orderly succession plan and set strategic operating procedures for the company in this new phase,” DWAC said in a statement. “Mr. Orlando’s departure enables the board to appoint new leadership, which it believes will restore confidence to the shareholders.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor About one-fourth of Roku’s cash and equivalents — nearly half a billion dollars — has been held in Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was shut down by financial regulators Friday after it collapsed. And the streaming platform company said it’s unsure the extent to which it will be able to recover that cash. SVB, after it faced a run on deposits and failed to raise capital to make up the shortfall, was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which appointed the FDIC as receiver of its assets. Roku disclosed in an SEC filing that about $487 million of its $1.9 billion in cash and equivalents is held at SVB, or about 26% of the company’s cash and cash equivalents balance as of March 10. The remaining $1.4 billion is “distributed across multiple large financial institutions,” Roku said in the filing.

The biggest bank failure since the financial crisis 15 years ago has hit streaming giant Roku.

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13D and 13G reports. For those outside of the inside-baseball world of corporate finance: Forty-five days out from the end of the year, companies are required to have filed 13D and 13G disclosure forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports are required for investors who amass 5% or more of a company’s total stock issue. Starting with this primer on how to monitor big-dollar investment bets, Variety will offer a quarterly survey of how the media and entertainment sector is faring among the world’s most sophisticated stock pickers.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery, which is struggling with billions of dollars in debt, is willing to pay more money to executives who might be able to help reduce it. The owner of HBO, Discovery Channel and Food Network said Monday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it would pay out new rewards to CEO David Zaslav, six senior staffers and an unspecified group of others if they could meet certain goals of new generation of free cash flow. “The changes to the Warner Bros. Discovery executive compensation program are designed to further incentivize Company employees, including members of its leadership team and others whose efforts are critical to achieving the key near-term financial objectives of increased free cash flow and reduced leverage,” said WBD board chairman Samuel A. Di Piazza, Jr. in a prepared statement.“The WBD board is confident that these additional incentives offer a more competitive package against the backdrop of ongoing industry-wide transformation and economic headwinds, and better position the company to advance core drivers of shareholder value.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In a wide-ranging restructuring, SiriusXM is eliminating 475 jobs — or about 8% of its headcount — with CEO Jennifer Witz citing economic uncertainty and a need to operate with “greater agility and efficiency.” The satellite radio and audio streaming company is the latest media company to pare back its headcount. Nearly every department across SiriusXM will be affected by the layoffs, Witz wrote in a memo to staff Monday announcing the cuts, which the company disclosed in an SEC filing. “The investments we are making in the business this year, coupled with today’s uncertain economic environment, require us to think differently about how our organization is structured,” Witz wrote. The “decision to reduce our workforce was required in order for us to maintain a sustainably profitable company.”

Warner Bros. Discovery has tweaked its CEO’s employment contract, granting a bigger pot of restricted stock units but linking them to free cash flow targets.

As it gets set to reveal plans for the likely separation of Starz and the Lionsgate movie and TV studio, Lionsgate has re-upped two key members of its management team: Vice Chairman Michael Burns and COO Brian Goldsmith.

Paramount has agreed to pay $122.5 million to settle a 2019 lawsuit by Viacom shareholders over the company’s merger with CBS.

A Lanarkshire businessman and boxing promoter is set to bring another host of celebrities up north in his latest instalment of 'An Evening With...'.

Shares in Dish Network continued their multi-day slide on Tuesday, falling another 6% to a 14-year low of $11.41, after the pay-TV and wireless provider confirmed its systems were hit by a cyberattack.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Dish Network is working to recover from a cyberattack that disrupted its internal servers and customer-service operations — and said the hack may have resulted in the theft of personal information. On Feb. 23, Dish execs announced on the operator’s earnings call that the company had experienced a network outage. After an investigation by cyber-security experts and outside advisers, Dish determined that the outage was due to “a cyber-security incident and notified appropriate law enforcement authorities,” the company disclosed in an SEC filing Tuesday. On Monday, Feb. 27, Dish said, it “became aware that certain data was extracted from the corporation’s IT systems as part of this incident” and said it’s possible that an investigation “will reveal that the extracted data includes personal information.”

The road to recovery. Bristol Palin shared an update on her health with fans following her ninth breast reconstruction surgery last month.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer A former MoviePass executive was arrested Tuesday on charges that he embezzled $260,000 from the company to pay for a party at Coachella Music Festival. Khalid Itum, 42, was indicted on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. The charges allege that Itum submitted sham invoices to MoviePass to pay for the marketing event, which he had run through a separate company that he owned and controlled. MoviePass collapsed in 2019, after losing hundreds of millions of dollars on its all-you-can-watch theatrical subscription business. Last November, the two top executives — Theodore Farnsworth and Mitch Lowe — were indicted on securities fraud charges for allegedly deceiving investors about the sustainability of the business.

Warner Bros Discovery chief executive David Zaslav earned $232 million in excess compensation in 2021, according to As You Sow’s latest annual ranking of the most overpaid CEOs among S&P 500 companies. Amazon, Apple, Disney and Netflix are also high up in the group’s ninth report that looks beyond total pay in its own attempt to quantify overpay and draw attention to some pressing issues in the space.

Mini Eggs often begin appearing on shelves well before Easter, but nobody complains as they're a great chocolate treat.

Disney CEO Bob Iger today called Marvel chairman Isaac Perlmutter’s backing of activist investor Nelson Peltz “a curious dynamic.”

Disney has finally unveiled the date for its annual meeting of shareholders, a virtual event to be held Monday, April 3 at 10 am PT.

Nicola Peltz's scathing text messages which left her former wedding planners in tears and drinking shots of tequila have been revealed in court.

Regal parent Cineworld said it’s opted to pursue a sale of assets and the process “is well under way” with non-binding bids due Feb 16.

Investor Nelson Peltz’s broadside against the the Walt Disney Co., and the prospect of rare proxy fight at the media giant, stunned media circles this week — and a flurry of SEC filings over the past few days suggest plenty more fireworks to come.

Ricky Gervais fans who used the Viagogo resale site to buy tickets for Scottish gigs have been warned they may be turned away at the door.

Apple CEO Tim Cook came close to $100 million in total compensation for the second straight year, taking home $99.4 million in fiscal 2022, according to a proxy statement filed with the SEC.

Netflix has hired PayPal veteran Jeffrey Karbowski, 45, as VP and Chief Accounting Officer.

Channel 4 privatization is off the table.

Exhibition giant Cineworld, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. last September, has said it will not sell off any of its assets individually, and has clarified that neither it nor its advisors have participated in discussions with AMC regarding the sale of any of its cinemas. This comes about two weeks after AMC said it held talks with lenders about potentially acquiring theaters from the portfolio of its rival.

A well-kent face was spotted at Glasgow's Irn-Bru Carnival on Friday afternoon with many youngsters left star-struck when 'Peter Pan' turned up.

AMC Entertainment said it held talks with lenders about potentially acquiring theaters from the portfolio of bankrupt rival Cineworld, which owns Regal Cinemas.

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has unloaded another 22 million shares of his publicly-traded electric automaker Tesla, raising north of $3.5 billion.

Warner Bros Discovery now expects to incur total pre-tax restructuring charges of $4.1 – $5.3 billion, which includes $2.8 – $3.5 billion of content impairment and development write-offs as it takes a hatchet to its programming. That’s well above the merged company’s initial announcement of charges for $3.2 – $4.3 billion related to its restructuring and transformation initiatives, which included $2 – $2.5 billion on th content side.

Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch Family Trust will not vote in favor of a Fox-News Corp. merger unless the combination has the blessing of special committees of outside directors, and of non-Murdoch affiliated stockholders.

BuzzFeed announced that it was cutting the size of its workforce by 12%, the latest media company to go through layoffs amid worsening economic conditions.

AMC Networks, whose CEO Christina Spade resigned last week, said Monday its board has named James Dolan “interim executive chairman.”

The moon colony is closing down as AMC+ will not proceed with a second season of Moonhaven. Word of the cancellation comes four months after the dystonic sci-fi series was renewed for a second season and days after AMC Networks announced sweeping cost-cutting measures as CEO Christina Spade stepped down, which included laying off 20% of its U.S. staff, and write-downs for up to $475 million as it restructures its business. Up to $400 million of that is for content-related moves the company calls “strategic programming assessments”

AMC Network said today it will take write-downs for up to $475 million as it restructures its business to cut costs. That includes up to $400 million for content it calls “strategic programming assessments” and $75 million for organizational restructuring costs including severance.