Top Stories

HOLLYWOOD, August 5: Entertainment Tonight has signed a deal to become the premiere provider of entertainment and celebrity content for MSN, and will also produce a daily online mini-newscast, ET on MSN, hosted by on-air talent from the syndicated newsmagazine. …

NEW YORK, August 5: Private-equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) has forecast that broadcast TV will surpass newspapers as the largest ad medium in the U.S. this year, while Internet advertising will exceed broadcast TV in 2011. The predictions are …

LONDON, August 5: BBC Worldwide’s hit ’80s series The Young Ones is now available on the iTunes Store in the U.K., with all six 30-minutes episodes from season one launching today and season two to follow shortly. The Young Ones …

NEW YORK, August 5: A new production team has been named for the eighth season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which will premiere this November on USA Network with new cast member Jeff Goldblum. With the series divided into …

STOCKHOLM, August 5: Modern Times Group’s Viasat Broadcasting will launch the movie channel TV1000 Action on September 1 in Russia, five other countries in the CIS and in the Baltics. The localized movie channel will be available to third-party cable …

LOS ANGELES, August 5: Comedian Russell Peters will premiere his latest special, Red, White and Brown, on Showtime and will host the channel’s new stand-up series Comics Without Borders next month. Red, White and Brown, which will air September 4 …

HONG KONG, August 5: Twenty media companies in the Asia Pacific are set to participate in the upcoming Asia Media Summit, organized by Media Partners Asia (MPA), on September 8, with speakers from STAR, Yahoo! and Discovery Networks, among others. …

CULVER CITY, August 5: Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has acquired the worldwide cross-platform distribution rights to Rocketboom.com, an online New York-based daily video news program, with plans to integrate the property with Crackle.com. SPT will manage Rocketboom’s current distribution agreements …

LONDON, August 5: ESPN has reached a deal to take control of Racing-Live.com, a site that provides news and information on events like the Formula 1 to more than 3 million unique users per month. Racing-Live.com covers Formula 1 (F1-Live.com), …

SINGAPORE, August 5: RGM Entertainment, a talent management and executive-production firm headquartered in Singapore, has set up a $400 million fund for English-language film and TV projects for the international market. The financing facility, with debt provided by Oceana Media …