Top Stories

CANNES, May 20: Cyrte Investments, set up by John de Mol, has acquired Los Angeles-based Spitfire Pictures, founded by Nigel Sinclair and Guy East, and will be merging it with the British studio Hammer Film Productions. Cyrte already owns a …

WASHINGTON, May 20: Retirement Living TV (RLTV), the first network dedicated to people 55 and older, has reached new distribution deals with Kansas-based Sunflower Broadband and Massachusetts-based Atlantic Broadband. The network’s deal with independent cable operator Sunflower Broadband marks its …

MILAN/LOS ANGELES, May 20: MGM Networks has signed a deal to launch a local-language version of its MGM Channel on SKY Italia, effective June, marking the service’s launch into the Italian market. The channel will be included in SKY Italia’s …

MUNICH, May 20: Telepool has acquired the international rights to the two-part catastrophe drama The Volcano, a joint production from teamWorx and RTL. Based on a screenplay by Alexander Rümelin, the film depicts the impact of a volcanic eruption in …

LOS GATOS, May 20: Online movie rental service Netflix has partnered with the digital-media outfit Roku for a new device that enables its subscribers to instantly stream a library of more than 10,000 movies and TV episodes from Netflix directly …

BARCELONA, May 20: Spain’s Imira Entertainment has signed a raft of new broadcast, licensing, interactive and home-entertainment deals for its girl-skewing animated series Lola & Virginia. Television sales include a deal with Nickelodeon Korea, which has become the fifth Nickelodeon …

LOS ANGELES, May 20: FOX has ordered 13 episodes of Hole in the Wall, the Japanese format represented worldwide by FremantleMedia. A casting call in Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta has been announced for the quirky series, which will …

MIAMI, May 20: MensajeTV, the first Internet television network targeting Latina women in the U.S., is set to launch a broadband channel and social-networking site in July. Today, MensajeTV is comprised of three different channels that focus on different areas …

HONG KONG, May 20: Disney-ABC International Television (Asia Pacific) has reached an agreement to supply a selection of current movies and TV series to Chunghwa Telecom’s Multimedia On-Demand (MOD) IPTV VOD service in Taiwan. Under this agreement, facilitated by Deltamac …

ARLINGTON, May 20: Veria has unveiled a new lineup of original series scheduled to premiere on its natural-wellness lifestyle network, Veria TV, in fall 2008, along with naming Michael Pepe as the president of media networks. Pepe, the former president …