Steven Spielberg’s latest release isn’t a theatrical offering, it’s a documentary aiming to highlight the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Spielberg has been working in tandem with Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav to preserve the memories of survivors who were kids at the time they were sent to the death camp and are now in their 80s and 90s.
Zaslav and Spielberg will be in Poland Tuesday to commemorate the event with 40 heads of state. Scheduled to join are other supporters of their joint initiative, named, “Auschwitz: Past Is Present,” including Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, CNN boss Jeff Zucker and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Also leading the effort are Ron Lauder, DST’s Yuri Milner, Haim Saban and Starbucks’ Howard Schultz.
Spielberg and Zaslav have herded a who’s who of business brawn to help forward the mission to keep survivor stories alive. They include: Barry Diller, Ari Emanuel, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ron Meyer, Leslie Moonves, Eric Schmidt, Rob Wiesenthal and Diane Von Furstenberg.
Zaslav told On the Money: “My grandmother was in Warsaw and they lost everything, and they came to America. They were the lucky ones.”
Discovery Communications is airing special programming for the event in 230 countries and as part of its Discovery Education division. “It’s not just about the Holocaust,” added Zaslav. “It’s about combating hate, whatever your ethnicity.”
Weinstein, who has released movies including “Life Is Beautiful” and the upcoming “Woman in Gold,” about Jewish survival stories, told On the Money: “This is a passion project for Steven and David, and there will be a couple of surprises from Steven Spielberg.”
Up in the air
Cut-rate chopper service Gotham Air is already the butt of jokes.
Gotham Air touted a $99 ride from Midtown to JFK, but NBC “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon said on his show that “cheapest” and “helicopter” were not two words he likes to see in the same sentence.
Fallon, we hear, is a fan of taking a seaplane out to the Hamptons.
Gotham Air was due to launch Wednesday, but other than media outlets, the helicopter service hasn’t had any paying customers.
A rep said the service was always slated to begin regular service starting in February.
The company’s press release states that it would begin taking reservations on Jan. 20, but our call to the number was met with voicemail and our call was never returned.
Final chapter
The private-equity mantra that they build companies while putting them in debt is starting to look half right.
Last week’s bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment means that three of the five biggest leveraged buyouts of all time have now gone bankrupt.
“These big bankruptcies do capture the public attention,” Eileen Applebaum, senior director for The Center for Economic Policy Research told our Josh Kosman.
Besides Apollo Global Management-controlled Caesars, KKR- and TPG-owned Energy Future Holdings (formerly TXU), which filed for bankruptcy last April, and much of what KKR-owned RJR Nabisco became, World Kitchen, filed for bankruptcy in 2002.
KKR’s HCA and the Blackstone Group’s Equity Office Properties are the other top-five buyouts, and neither is in danger of collapsing.
Text targets
Sito Mobile, which helps companies advertise through text messages and location-based marketing, is targeting a group that sends hundreds of messages a day — millennials.
Jerry Hug, the company’s CEO, told our Julie Earle-Levine that major brands are realizing they use mobile devices to reach key markets like Generation Y.
He says 77 million millennials in the US are the largest segment of smartphone owners.
Competitors in the space include Millennial Media, X ad and Hipcricket. Hug says Sito is close to finalizing a deal to acquire Hipcricket, paying $4.5 million in cash.
Last year, Sito had $10 million in revenues. The fastest-growing portion was its location-based ad business. Hugs expects to double in size and scale this year.