Top Stories

LOS ANGELES/MUNICH, March 7: Private equity firms KKR and Permira have competed their purchase of German Media Partners’ majority interest in ProSiebenSat.1 Media. The holding company Lavena Holding 4 GmbH now owns approximately 88 percent of the voting common stock …

TORONTO, March 7: CHUM Television will deliver content from its MuchMusic, SPACE and FashionTelevision channels to the new broadband content platform Joost. “CHUM has always been on the front lines of the multiplatform experience,” said Roma Khanna, the SVP of …

NEW YORK, March 7: Private equity firm Palladium Equity Partners has made an investment in Todobebe, which produces the Spanish-language parenting show Todobebe TV that airs on Hispanic broadcaster Telemundo. Headquartered in Miami, Todobebe provides parenting information through television, radio, …

LOS ANGELES, March 7: Fox Soccer Channel and its sister network, Fox Sports en Español, have secured the exclusive U.S. English- and Spanish-language rights to Serie A Italian football matches, beginning this August and running through 2009/2010. The rights were …

LOS ANGELES, March 7: Lifetime Television has ordered production on 13 episodes of the new one-hour comedic drama series Side Order of Life, scheduled to premiere this July on the network. The new drama joins Army Wives and State of …

LONDON, March 7: BBC Worldwide has reached a deal with Wanda Films in Spain to co-produce Earth’s Great Events, a new six-part series on global climactic phenomena from the BBC Natural History Unit. The deal marks BBC’s first co-production deal …

LONDON, March 7: FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) has announced two U.S. deals on its controversial 90-minute documentary 638 Ways to Kill Castro: a broadcast slot with Sundance Channel and a DVD rollout via BCI. BCI has secured the exclusive DVD distribution …

HONG KONG, March 7: BabyTV has launched its 24-hour channel in Hong Kong on PCCW’s now Broadband TV platform. BabyTV will be available exclusively as a subscription channel on now, offering parents in Hong Kong a service to enjoy with …

BUENOS AIRES, March 7: Dori Media Group has licensed the format rights to its novelas The Shelter (El Refugio) and You are the One (Sos Mi Vida) to Portugal’s TVI. The deal builds on Dori’s successes in the last six …

LOS ANGELES, March 7: Program Partners has cleared the award-winning teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation in over 70 percent of the U.S. for a fall syndication launch. The drama has recently been added to affiliates in Tampa, Minneapolis, Cleveland, …