Top Stories

HAMILTON, August 29: Private equity firm Apax Partners has reached a deal to acquire 49.7 percent of Ronald S. Lauder’s interest in Central European Media Enterprises (CME) for approximately $190 million in cash, giving it a 7.8 percent interest in …

LOS ANGELES, August 29: Viewership for the Primetime Emmy Awards fell 14 percent this year to 16.1 million, according to Nielsen Media Research, but the NBC broadcast still fared better than ABC’s broadcast of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse …

TORONTO, August 29: Muse Entertainment’s This is Wonderland leads the nominations for the 21st Annual Gemini Awards, which will be presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television at the River Rock Casino Resort on November 4. This Is …

TOKYO, August 29: MTV Networks has reached a deal to acquire the remaining interest in joint venture MTV Japan from private equity firm H&Q Asia Pacific (H&QAP), marking the company’s largest acquisition in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to this agreement, …

ENGLEWOOD, August 29: With Liberty Media’s acquisition of IDT Entertainment complete, the venture has merged with Starz Entertainment Group (SEG) to create Starz, a new production, distribution and broadcasting entity that will be overseen by Robert Clasen as chairman and …

LOS ANGELES, August 29: Azteca America will now be included in Nielsen Media Research’s National Television Index (NTI), the people-meter ratings service that also tracks the national U.S. broadcast networks as well as the Hispanic broadcasters Univision and Telemundo. Prior …

BURBANK, August 29: The premiere of the newest Disney Channel original movie The Cheetah Girls 2 drew an average of 7.8 million viewers on Friday night, the most ever for an original movie debut in the history of the channel, …

SINGAPORE, August 29: Singaporean cable-TV platform StarHub is launching a service that allows non-subscribers to pre-pay for access to various channels for a certain amount of time. FlexiWatch launches August 31 and, according to StarHub, is aimed at those customers …

BEIJING, August 29: Following a successful stint at the Beijing TV Festival last week, BBC Worldwide has secured two deals on its raft of factual titles with Chinese broadcasters. The docudramas Krakatoa—The Last Days, Hannibal—Rome’s Worst Nightmare and The Lost …

HONG KONG, August 29: Celestial Pictures has launched WaTV, a channel exploring youth lifestyles in modern china, on the pay-TV platform Astro All Asia Networks in Malaysia and Brunei. The channel, according to Celestial, is devoted to the “trendy youth …