Top Stories

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 27: Jack Valenti, a former presidential aide who developed the U.S. movie ratings system and spent decades running the Motion Picture Association of America, passed away yesterday at the age of 85. Valenti was an aide to …

LONDON, April 27: The BBC has been given approval by the BBC Trust to launch a nation-wide free-to-view satellite offering, currently known as Freesat, in association with ITV. Freesat will provide standard definition and high-definition channels, beginning in the spring …

KUALA LUMPUR, April 27: Discovery Networks Asia is launching three new channels in Malaysia on the Astro platform on May 1: Discovery Science, Discovery Home & Health and Discovery Real Time. The new channels join the existing Discovery Channel, Animal …

TORONTO, April 27: Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired the distribution rights for DVD, TV, mobile and new media, outside North America, to five feature films from Canada’s Peace Arch Entertainment Group. The films are the dramas The Good Shepherd (Christian …

NEW YORK, April 27: At its Upfront presentation, Cartoon Network’s late-night programming block, Adult Swim, announced plans to add a seventh night of programming, and introduced a lineup of new series such as Fat Guy Stuck In Internet, Lucy, the …

SANTA MONICA, April 27: ClickStar has reached a deal with AOL for the exclusive promotion of its broadband premiere of the film Lonely Hearts—featuring Salma Hayek and John Travolta—which is now available for a limited number of free downloads via …

PALO ALTO, April 27: Azureus, which aggregates and distributes long-form, high-quality video over the Internet, has reached a deal to offer up content from UNICEF on its Vuze platform worldwide. The deal, UNICEF’s first with a peer-to-peer platform, will see …

SAN FRANCISCO, April 27: Michael Hoff Productions (MHP) has announced a production slate that includes a range of programs for National Geographic Channel (NGC), Fine Living TV Network and Voom’s Equator HD. MHP inked a deal with NGC that includes …

LOS ANGELES, April 27: TNT and TBS original programming chief Michael Wright has been upped to senior VP of the newly reorganized and renamed Content Creation Group, reporting to Steve Koonin, the president of Turner Entertainment Networks. Wright had previously …

PARIS, April 27: Frank Melloul has been appointed as the director of strategy and international development at France 24, effective May 2, reporting to CEO Alain de Pouzilhac. In his new role, Melloul will be responsible for worldwide research, target …