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LONDON: Channel 5 owner Richard Desmond has appointed Barclays to advise on a possible sale. Desmond has reportedly asked advisors to look into the possible sale of the network, which could raise more than £700 million ($1.16 billion). Desmond bought the British free-to-air channel for £103.5 million ($171 million) in …

LONDON: Digital video sales in the U.K. were up by 40 percent in 2013, according to year-end figures from the Entertainment Retail Association (ERA), driven by services such as iTunes, Netflix and LOVEFiLM. Digital video sales grew by 40.2 percent in 2013, to £621.4 million. Overall, the entertainment retail market …

LONDON: Antenna Group has acquired Kiss TV, Kiss FM, Magic FM, One FM and Rock FM in Romania from ProSiebenSat.1, which sold off Prima TV to the Romanian media businessman Cristian Burci. Theo Kyriakou, the CEO of Antenna Group, said, "I'm delighted that we've been able to acquire these market …

LONDON/AMSTERDAM: Antenna Group has named Peter Smith, previously the chief executive of Cineflix Studios and the former president of NBCUniversal International, as its managing director. Since August 2012, Smith was serving as CEO of Cineflix Studios. Prior to this he was overseeing the growth of NBCUniversal's international business. During his …

LONDON: UKTV has revealed its plans to screen the first episode of the third season of the legal dramedy Suits online, a week before its premiere on Dave. The first episode of season 3 will become available on Dave on Demand, the Dave iOS app and Dave's YouView service on …

LONDON: A study from BT TV has revealed that only a fifth (22 percent) of viewers in the U.K. settle in to watch TV without interruption, reinforcing the rising trend of "media meshing." Eight in ten Britons said they are distracted by other forms of entertainment, taking on tasks such …

LONDON: Rachel Ashdown, a former head of entertainment at ITV Studios in Manchester, has been tapped for the role of commissioning editor for entertainment at the BBC. Ashdown's previous credits include executive producing the Whizz Kid Entertainment/ASG Production Titanic: A Commemoration In Music And Film (BBC), Wall Of Fame (Sky1) …

LONDON: FremantleMedia's Dominic Burns has been named senior VP of brand management and commercial for NBCUniversal (NBCU) International Television Production, effective in March. Burns will be expected to develop brand extension and commercial partnerships to increase value across NBCU International Television Production's expanding global TV brands. He will also contribute to …

LONDON: Power has sold a number of mini-series and TV movies to Polskie Media for broadcast in Poland in 2015. One of the mini-series that has been licensed is Air Force One is Down, which stars Jeremy Sisto (Suburgatory), Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2), Rupert Graves (Sherlock), Jamie Thomas King (Tinker …

EL SEGUNDO: IHS is forecasting that the worldwide consumer electronics (CE) market will contract this year, as it waits for new innovative products, such as ultra-high-definition TVs, to catch on. IHS predicts that worldwide CE manufacturing revenue will fall to $250 billion in 2014, down 2 percent from 2013's $255.7 …