Top Stories

MIAMI: In its inaugural Miami outing, NATPE had 4,504 registered attendees, a 22-percent gain over last year’s event in Las Vegas. Registered buyers reached 702, up almost 94 percent on the year prior. Registered individual stations, group or station owners …

BURBANK: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is expanding into social games with the launch of Gossip Girl: Social Climbing, playable on Facebook. The game is based on the Warner Bros. Television series Gossip Girl, which airs Mondays on The CW. The …

MIAMI: SPE (Sony Pictures Entertainment) Networks Latin America has acquired the upcoming FOX U.S. version of The X Factor from FremantleMedia Enterprises. The deal, brokered by Sheila Aguirre, FME’s senior VP of sales for Latin America and Hispanic-speaking U.S.A., will see …

LONDON: Karl Woolley has been tapped to head up the children’s production division at Impossible Pictures, overseeing a slate that currently includes commissions for CBeebies and CITV. Woolley has worked in children’s television as a presenter, writer, producer and director, …

MAINZ: Markus Schächter, director general of ZDF, will step down at the end of his term in March 2012. Schächter’s term as head of the German public broadcaster ends March 14, 2012. The search for a successor will begin soon, …

MIAMI: Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has been at NATPE this week highlighting its slate of international channels, which are available in six languages. For international viewers, CCTV operates an English-language news channel, CCTV News; a Spanish-language network, CCTV-Español; and a new doc service, …

MIAMI: Venevision International has inked a deal to represent on the worldwide market the clips library owned by RMG News, consisting of more than 400 hours of footage, from high-speed pursuits and shootouts to cliff rescues and brush fires. “With …

MIAMI: Globo TV International has entered into a partnership with Tony Fantozzi and Dick Robertson to act as consultants, contributing to the company’s new strategy for the U.S. and Canada. Fantozzi and Robertson will explore new co-production deals on English-speaking …

NEW YORK: Notional and Electus have signed a deal with TV Asahi Corporation and Yoshimoto Kogyo Corporation to produce and distribute the studio-based game show Unbeatable. Notional’s creative team will work with the TV Asahi and Yoshimoto Kogyo creative teams …

LOS ANGELES: OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has a new prime-time series focused on home makeovers, Home Takeover with Simon & Tomas, based on a Scandinavian format sold to the channel by Strix Television. The entertainment format, originally titled Home Delivery, …