Top Stories

LONDON, July 17: Bandai Spain has been appointed by Chorion as the toy distributor for Noddy in the region, joining the existing roster of 200-plus licensees for the hit brand worldwide. As Noddy heads into its 60th anniversary year in …

SYDNEY, July 17: Southern Star International has completed a deal with TV2 Norway for the drama series Out of the Blue. Out of the Blue, set in Manly, Australia, tells the story of a murder during a high-school reunion. Friendships …

LONDON, July 17: Following the renewal of a multi-year combined-genre output deal, Finland’s YLE has picked up more than 100 episodes of the long-running British drama Coronation Street from ITV Worldwide for TV1. The series is set to debut in …

SANTA MONICA, July 17: VH1 has lined up a third season of Rock of Love, which features a new set of women competing for the heart of rock star Bret Michaels as they travel across America on a month-long tour. …

EL SEGUNDO, July 16: Konami Digital Entertainment and FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) are developing a new American Idol-based video game for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore 2 is slated to launch in …

LONDON, July 17: There has been a record 250-percent year-on-year increase in video usage on the international edition of CNN.com, the global news network has announced. The spike comes nine months after the global relaunch of CNN.com. Since then, there …

LONDON, July 17: Nickelodeon UK is extending its animation offerings with the launch of a new channel, NickToonsters, on August 18 on Sky. NickToonsters will target the 5-to-7 set, featuring classic cartoons such as Rugrats, Hey Arnold, The Wild Thornberrys, …

SINGAPORE, July 17: Subscribers to the Singaporean cable platform StarHub will be able to access coverage from this summer’s Olympic Games on six branded channels, as well as on HD5, the MediaCorp service that will deliver up to 19 hours …

LONDON, July 16: Disney-ABC-ESPN Television has named Murray Barnett to the new role of VP of sports channels and syndication for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Barnett will be responsible for maximizing revenue and distribution for ESPN’s channels …

SEATTLE/LOS ANGELES/MUMBAI, July 16: MovieBeam, the beleaguered on-demand, set-top-box-delivered movie-rental service launched by Disney in 2005, has been acquired by The Valuable Group, an Indian media and technology company. MovieBeam was suspended not longer after launch and then revived by …