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COSTA MESA, October 20: Playmates Toys has been named as the master toy licensee for Microsoft and 4Kids Entertainment’s new series Viva Piñata, currently airing on the Saturday-morning 4Kids TV block on FOX. The show is accompanied by an upcoming …

VIENNA, October 20: The Universum strand of documentaries from Austrian pubcaster ORF was the company’s standout offering at MIPCOM last week, generating a number of new deals, including one with RAI. The Italian broadcaster picked up Universum titles like Strange …

SEOUL, October 20: The international distribution division of the Korean terrestrial KBS has licensed its new drama Hwangini into Taiwan and Vietnam. The company’s big push at MIPCOM, Hwangini is a 24×70-minute costume drama about a Korean Gisaeng (Geisha). Deals …

MIAMI, October 20: Wide Angle Productions Group has inked a deal with El alambique de Ideas, an independent association of TV writers in Spain, to pitch ten of its new series in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. The programs …

SAN FRANCISCO, October 20: Factual programming outfit Michael Hoff Productions (MHP) has named Ashley Adams as its new managing producer. Overseeing day-to-day production, Adams will manage all of MHP’s teams who are currently producing more than 30 hours of factual …

PARIS, October 20: The final tally of this year’s MIPCOM puts attendance at 12,509, its highest participation ever, showing a 7-percent increase on MIPCOM 2005. This year also marked a new record in terms of participating companies, with 4,216 from …

CHESEAUX/ENGLEWOOD, October 20: The Kudelski Group, which specializes in digital security systems, has reached a deal to acquire a controlling interest in the interactive television technology outfit OpenTV from Liberty Media for $132.3 million. OpenTV is a provider of set-top …

NEW YORK, October 20: NBC Universal’s wide-ranging NBCU 2.0 restructure announced yesterday will see the NBC network focusing on lower-cost, unscripted programming for its weeknight 8 p.m. slot, beginning in the fall of next year. The restructure is intended to …

WINNIPEG, October 20: CanWest Global Communications Corp. has retained Citigroup Global Markets to explore the possibility of offloading its interest in Network Ten in Australia, in the wake of the country’s newly liberalized media ownership laws. “CanWest has retained Citigroup …

LONDON, October 20: Subscribers of the British cable platform ntl Telewest now have access to a slate of programming from Channel 4 on an on-demand basis, the two companies announced today. The platform’s 2.8 million digital cable subscribers will have …