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LOS ANGELES, October 27: Jason Wiles (Third Watch) and Australian actress Daisy Betts are the latest cast members to join Fox Television Studios’ (FtvS) Persons Unknown, a new one-hour mystery drama. Michael Rymer, who directed the Battlestar Galactica pilot, has …

BURBANK/ENGLEWOOD, October 27: Production is set to begin in early 2009 on Spartacus, a new original drama produced by Starz Media with executive producers Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Joshua Donen. The 13×1-hour series will provide a new twist on …

NEW YORK, October 27: MSNBC will begin telecasting in full 1080i high definition as of spring 2009, following on the heels of its one-year anniversary of relocating to NBC News world headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. …

UNIVERSAL CITY, October 27: NBC has updated its Wednesday night schedule, relocating Life to a 9 p.m. slot, where it leads into Law & Order, and shifting Lipstick Jungle to Friday nights, where it will follow Crusoe. In addition, the …

MUNICH, October 27: ESPN is said to be mulling a bid for the rights to Bundesliga German football matches, reports indicate, and is looking into plans for a local-language service to broadcast the games. Bloomberg, citing two people close to …

LONDON/UNIVERSAL CITY, October 27: Universal Pictures is aligning with Top Up TV for TVBox, a subscription VOD service in the U.K. delivering current and library series from NBC Universal’s portfolio of episodic content. The offering builds on the success of …

LOS ANGELES, October 27: High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the first theatrical release in Disney’s lucrative film franchise, took in $42 million in its opening weekend in the U.S., setting a new record for movie musicals. The weekend take …

TORONTO/LONDON, October 27: DECODE Enterprises has appointed Emmanuelle Bon to handle sales for French-speaking Europe, Benelux and Scandinavia across the company’s distribution catalogue. As territory manager, she will be leading the sales efforts for the company’s catalogue, which includes programming …

AMSTERDAM, October 27: Format agency Absolutely Independent has scored a number of deals through its Scandinavian office on titles such as Battle of the Choirs and Lost Without a Trace. Lost Without a Trace, an original Dutch format from KRO, …

LONDON, October 27: DCD Rights closed a number of deals at MIPCOM for September Films’ hour-long documentary Pregnant Man, as well as West Park Pictures’ 6×1-hour doc series Stephen Fry in America. Originally commissioned by Channel 4 in the U.K., …