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PARIS: A number of key appointments have been made within the Zodiak Media Group, which is being rebranded as Zodiak Media.  Vincent Chalvon Demersay, who remains CEO of Zodiak’s Marathon Media, is appointed chief strategy officer for the group. The role will see him working closely with Jonathan Slow, the group COO …

LONDON: Britons watched 4 hours and 2 minutes of linear TV a day in 2011, matching the record high set in 2010, with the commercial broadcasters accounting for 64 percent of all viewing. According to Thinkbox, using data from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB), commercial TV channels had an …

PARIS: BBC World News has expanded its relationship with French telco SFR for carriage on Neufbox TV, upping its distribution in the country to more than 16 million homes. BBC World News became available last month on SFR’s Neufbox and Neufbox Evolution offers on ADSL and fiber. It was previously …

LONDON: Channel 4 has commissioned a full season of the sketch show Anna and Katy’s Television Programme from Roughcut TV. Anna and Katy’s Television Programme is a six-part character-driven sketch show for Channel 4 that features celebrity cameos and up-and-coming talents on the sketch comedy circuit. Anna Crilly’s previous credits …

LONDON: Netflix’s new streaming service in the U.K. and Ireland has licensed a range of comedy and drama titles from FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), scoring a total of 115 hours. Titles under the deal include Men Behaving Badly, The Naked Civil Servant, The Strip and Falcon Beach. Netflix U.K. subscribers will also …

MILAN: Sky Italia is rolling out 13 additional high-definition channels on February 1, bringing its total HD slate to 52. More than 70 percent of the platform’s 5 million subscribers are signed up for the HD service, Sky Italia said. The new additions as of next month include Extreme Sports Channel HD and …

PARK CITY: From the Sundance Film Festival, AMC/Sundance Channel Global announced new carriage deals in Portugal, Belgium, Poland, France and Taiwan. At the end of 2011, Sundance Channel rolled out in Portugal on pay-TV platform ZON Multimédia. The channel has also secured carriage with Belgacom TV in Belgium, adding to previous distribution …

LONDON: Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, is said to be planning to step down at the end of this year or early next, after eight years at the helm of the British public broadcaster. The speculation in the U.K. press comes a few days after BBC Trust’s chairman, …

OSLO: The first episode of Lilyhammer gave Norwegian broadcaster NRK1 its best numbers ever for a drama-series premiere, reaching an overall share of 56.3 percent. Sold worldwide by SevenOne International, Lilyhammer secured a 44.2-percent share in the 12 to 44 demo on NRK1 and outperformed the channel average by 245 …

BUDAPEST: Writer and director Agnieszka Holland, whose In Darkness is a contender for best foreign-language film at this year’s Academy Awards, is working on a three-part drama for HBO Central Europe about Czech student activist Jan Palach. The drama will tell the story of Palach, the student who burned himself to death …