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NEW YORK, January 10: A strike has been averted at CBS News, with some 500 employees who are members of the Writers Guild of America inking a new contract after working without one since April 2005. In November, CBS newswriters …

HONG KONG, January 10: At this year’s Hong Kong Toy Fair, HIT Entertainment named Funtastic as the Thomas & Friends Trackmaster distribution partner for Australia. Funtastic will oversee the transition from the Thomas & Friends Motor Road and Rail track …

LOS ANGELES, January 10: Warner Bros. has informed about 1,000 TV and film production employees that several layoffs could soon be announced as a result of the Hollywood writers’ strike. A statement from the studio noted: “These WARN notices were …

LONDON, January 10: September Films has been commissioned by Channel 4 to produce the hour-long documentary The Real Elephant Man, based on the work of a Chinese physician named Professor Xu. Professor Xu deals with abnormal tumors that other doctors …

BANGKOK, January 10: Thailand’s leading pay-TV platform, TrueVisions UBC, is set to begin offering personal video recorders (PVRs) to its subscriber base early this year. TrueVisions UBC will be offering standard-definition PVRs by Humax integrated with OpenTV Core2 and OpenTV …

BARCELONA, January 10: Spain’s Imira Entertainment, formerly Icon Animation, has inked several deals for youth programming with Spanish-language channels and home-video distributors in Latin America and the U.S. The kids and family channel Sorpresa! picked up the Spanish-language rights to …

LONDON, January 10: Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) has inked an agreement to provide a range of current and library movie titles to Belgian telecom operator Belgacom’s on-demand service. Belgacom TV customers will be able to access current and library …

MONTREAL, January 10: Astral Media’s VRAK.TV has appointed DECODE Entertainment’s distribution head, Dominique Bazay, as its new VP of programming, effective February 11. In her new role, Bazay will head up the programming operations of VRAK.TV and will report to …

MONTREAL, January 10: The Canadian pay-TV operator Cogeco Cable has announced a video-on-demand agreement with Disney-ABC International Television for a range of new and classic movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Disney Animation, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax. The agreement includes …

DETROIT, January 10: Spike TV has ordered six one-hour episodes of a new series from Al Roker Entertainment that takes viewers inside the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). DEA is being produced by Al Roker Entertainment in association with Size 12 …