Top Stories

LOS ANGELES/MEXICO CITY, June 21: The Televisa-led consortium of investors looking to acquire U.S. Hispanic broadcaster Univision missed THE bid deadline, the New York Times reports, in part because Carlyle Group dropped out at the last minute in a dispute …

AMSTERDAM, June 20: Ahead of the Sunny Side of the Doc documentary market, Off the Fence has confirmed the sale of a number of nature documentaries. France 5 has acquired the rights to Appalachia—The Endless Forest and Death Valley, both …

NEW YORK, June 21: Time Warner is looking into whether company funds were used by its CFO, Wayne Pace, to buy gifts for a woman accused of operating a high-priced prostitution ring. The alleged madam, Andrea Schwartz, told two New …

LONDON/LOS ANGELES, June 21: FremantleMedia North America has upped Julie Uribe to senior VP of development, and has tapped James Sunderland from Granada in the U.K. to serve as executive producer. Uribe, previously development VP, will oversee all unscripted programming …

NEW YORK, June 21: Licensing 2006 International opened at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City yesterday with expectations of more than 23,000 attendees from 100-plus markets. Licensed products represent $175 billion in retail sales worldwide, according …

CULVER CITY, June 21: George Chien has been upped to executive director of international networks at Sony Pictures Television International, tasked with supporting the company’s Asian networks. Based in Culver City, Chien reports to Martha Eberts, the SVP of international …

NEW YORK, June 21: After 44 years, Dan Rather and CBS News are parting ways, with the anchor said to be mulling an offer to do a weekly series at the cable network HDNet. Rather was the anchor of the …

MALIBU/NEW YORK, June 20: Jakks Pacific has signed a multi-year, multi-product licensing agreement with HIT Entertainment to develop a range of merchandise based on Barney. Categories will include learning toys and plush, with product slated to begin hitting retail stores …

LONDON/MADRID, June 20: Granada International and Zinkia Entertainment’s preschool series Pocoyo has secured free- and pay-TV slots in Spain with TVE and Boomerang, and has sold to RTP in Portugal. The 3-D animated series, re-commissioned for a second season by …

NEW YORK, June 20, 2006: Taffy Entertainment will announce a major product launch for Cartoon Network’s hit animated program Code Lyoko at Licensing Show this week. A new toy line, created by Marvel Toys, will be available exclusively at Toy …