Top Stories

NEW YORK, June 27: MTV in the U.S., and sister offerings in 36 countries have greenlit a second season of the social networking series Meet or Delete, targeted at college students and produced in collaboration with the information technology company …

HO CHI MINH CITY/SINGAPORE, June 27: Disney Channel has expanded its presence in Vietnam and is now available in 75 percent of all pay-TV households, with carriage on the pay-TV systems Vietnam Cable Television Service Technique Center (VCTV) and Saigon …

SAN FRANCISCO, June 27: VIZ Media has reached a deal to make its hit anime series Death Note available for download-to-own on TotalVid.com, beginning tomorrow. At launch, 16 subtitled episodes of Death Note will initially be available, with one new …

CHICAGO, June 27: Towers Productions will produce a one-hour documentary special for the National Geographic Channel entitled Road to War, about the origins of the war in Iraq, for broadcast in the U.S. in late August. Towers will also handle …

SÃO PAULO, June 26: Six months since its Latin American launch by Globo TV International, the telenovela Snakes & Lizards has notched up deals in more than 10 countries, most recently Uruguay and Venezuela. In Uruguay, the series launched on …

LUXEMBOURG/HILVERSUM, June 26: RTL Group has reached a deal to acquire from John de Mol’s Talpa Media the Radio 538 station as well as a collection of TV assets, including Dutch soccer broadcasting rights. The deal announced earlier today sees …

MIAMI, June 26: Yahoo! Telemundo—a commercial venture between NBC Universal’s Telemundo Communications Group and Yahoo!—has launched Gana Mi Casa (My House Wins), the first Spanish-language made-for-broadband home improvement series. Produced by Promofilm and hosted by Humberto Carrera and Karla Gomez, …

LONDON, June 26: British broadcaster Five has been hit with a £300,000 ($600,000) fine by regulator Ofcom over the daytime game show Brainteaser, which on several occasions announced fake names as winners or had production staff pose as winners. News …

LOS ANGELES, June 26: Bennett Media Worldwide has closed a slew of post-MIPTV deals for its high-definition reality programming, with cumulative sales now totaling 200 hours. Foxtel in Australia has acquired pay-TV rights for Bikini Destinations, Stag, Best of Hawaiian …

LONDON, June 26: The members of the BBC Direction Group, consisting of the pubcaster’s most senior executives, have waived their annual bonuses for the 2006/2007 period, totaling about £350,000 ($700,000). Director-General Mark Thompson said in a statement: "Overall this has …