World Screen

PARIS/NEW YORK: There are 13 nominees across three categories for this year’s International Digital Emmy Awards, which will be presented at a special ceremony on April 12 at MIPTV. The nominees come from seven different countries—Brazil, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hong …

ENGLEWOOD/MEXICO CITY: EchoStar is acquiring Satelites Mexicanos (Satmex)—the Mexican operator that delivers video, audio and data services to the Americas via three satellites and two satellite uplink facilities—in a joint venture with MVS Comunicaciones. MVS, which operates across the radio, television, …

LOS ANGELES: OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network has acquired the television rights to the Academy Award-nominated film Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire from Lionsgate. OWN has licensed the first broadcast window behind pay TV beginning summer 2012. …

LONDON: Endemol has picked up a controlling interest in WeiT Media, a Russian production company headed up by Timur Weinstein that works across drama, entertainment, animation, feature films and TV movies, documentaries and digital content. Established in August 2009 by Weinstein, …

LOS ANGELES: The national board of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) has approved plans to jointly negotiate its next prime-time TV contract alongside the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). The contracts that AFTRA and SAG currently have with the Alliance …

LONDON: RDF Rights has named Karen Vermeulen as its new VP and head of global TV sales and co-production for the kids and family division. Most recently, Vermeulen was the director of program distribution for the U.K. and Ireland at The …

LONDON: Maximilian Bolenius is to serve as the VP of sales for German-speaking Europe and Eastern Europe at FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), joining from a role as director of sales at ZDF Enterprises. Reporting to Mel Acock, the London-based CEO, Bolenius …

PARIS: Vivendi says it reached it targets for 2009, reporting revenues that were up 6.9 percent to 27.1 billion euros and an adjusted net income of 2.6 billion euros. Jean-Bernard Lévy, the chairman of the Management Board, noted: “In 2009, …

LOS ANGELES: The animated action-comedy series Hero: 108 from Moonscoop launches today on Cartoon Network in the U.S. and U.K., taking a weekday slot. The Flash-animated series will air at 7 a.m. in the U.S. and 4 p.m. in the …

This article originally appeared in the MIPCOM ’09 issue.   Neil Cavuto has covered some of the most important business stories of the last two decades, including the 1987 stock-market crash, the Enron scandal, and, more recently, the many failing …