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NEW YORK: The new sketch comedy series Jon Benjamin Has a Van has been given a ten-episode order from Comedy Central, which has slated the show for summer 2011. Produced by Absolutely Productions, Jon Benjamin Has a Van features the …

NEW YORK: Oxygen Media has greenlit a second season of the dating show Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too, a spin-off to the hit reality series Bad Girls Club. In its first run, Love Games became the network’s most …

JOHANNESBURG: The global television audience for yesterday’s World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands could top 700 million, outrating the 2006 event in Germany. According to Eurodata TV Worldwide, Telecinco in Spain scored a 78.1 percent share as 13.4 …

LONDON: Nathalie Drouaire has been brought on to serve in a consultancy role at FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), to lead the development of an English-language drama slate with international co-financing. Effective immediately, Drouaire will be working alongside FME’s London and Los …

NEW YORK: Subscribers to AT&T’s U-verse IPTV platform could lose access to AMC, WE tv and IFC this week, if the operator is unable to reach a new carriage deal with Rainbow Media. The current carriage deal between the two companies expired July …

SAN FRANCISCO: YouTube is investing $5 million in grants for select new and emerging partners, to further the creation of high-quality videos. The YouTube Partners Grants program will serve to help fund the production budgets of a small group of …

BOSTON: Bell Canada’s consumer portal, Sympatico.ca, has introduced an iPad-ready website with video powered by Brightcove, which has been tapped to lead all video efforts for the Canadian communications provider. This marks the first Canadian media company to implement the …

 PORT WASHINGTON: E1 Entertainment has firmed up a multi-year deal to serve as distributor on more than 200 titles from Blue Underground.  E1 will represent catalogue titles as well as new home-video releases in the U.S., physically, digitally and through …

BEIJING: China has renewed Google’s license to operate its website in China, despite a rift over Gmail accounts being hacked and censorship of search results.  Google last week stopped automatically redirecting users in China to its uncensored Hong Kong site …

BURBANK: ABC has slated its fall premiere dates for the 2010-11 season, with the return of Dancing with the Stars and Castle kicking off the new lineup on September 20. The following day will see the launch of Detroit 1-8-7, …