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LOS ANGELES: An expanded sessions lineup has been added to next month’s NATPE Europe in Prague, as well as a keynote by showrunner Adrian Hodges. An award-winning writer and creator, Hodges most recently created the BBC series The Musketeers. He will share his experiences and perspective of the global television …

PARIS: Lagardère Active has picked up an 82 percent stake in the Spanish audiovisual production outfit Grupo Boomerang TV. The remaining 18 percent stake will continue to be held by the founding partners, who will carry on with the day-to-day management of the group. Grupo Boomerang TV was set up …

MOSCOW: The Russian VOD platform ivi is launching a personalized TV service that is meant to combine traditional television with a recommendation system. The newly launched ivi tv is being touted as a "first-of-its-kind personalized TV service," which is based on and integrated into ivi's VOD platform. The service features …

BUDAPEST: SPI International has secured carriage for three FilmBox movie channels on the DIGI platform in Hungary. The FilmBox channel brand will make its debut on June 1 on the DIGI satellite network in Hungary. The premium package, called FilmMix, will include FilmBox, FilmBox Family and FilmBox Plus. "During the …

MAINZ: Enterprises Sonor, a joint venture between ZDF Enterprises and Bavaria Media, is jumping into the music field after acquiring more than 1,000 titles from musician Eberhard Schoener. The rights pickup sets the stage for Sonor to enter the music-production industry. The studio also holds a few other productions by …

LONDON: UKTV has commissioned three titles for its classic-comedy channel Gold as part of its push to air more original scripted content on the network. Among the new commissions is Henry IX, a single-camera series set in the fictitious, contemporary court of Henry IX, King of the United Kingdom. Also …

LONDON: While the BBC's latest monthly report reveals that iPlayer figures have fallen for the third consecutive month, Dan Taylor-Watt, the head of BBC iPlayer, is defending the performance in a blog post to "correct some misleading headlines." "There were a number of articles suggesting iPlayer’s popularity is on the …

PARIS/LOS ANGELES: Pay-TV channel C More Entertainment has clinched a package featuring more than 50 hours of content from Prime Entertainment Group, to be aired across the Nordics. The acquired titles are the weekly magazine Hollywood News Feed and the celebrity-bio program Close Up. The former has already been sold …

LONDON: ITV plc has acquired Mammoth Screen, which is behind such hit scripted productions as Poldark. ITV has held a 25 percent equity investment in Mammoth Screen since 2007 and has now acquired the remaining 75 percent of the company. ITV Studios’ distribution arm, ITV Studios Global Entertainment, has an …

UNTERFOEHRING: Germany's ProSiebenSat.1 is making an open call to the international TV market to submit proposals for the development of international scripted series co-productions. Writers, showrunners and production companies are invited to present early-stage concepts for TV series with a "broad and entertaining cinematic appeal," according to ProSiebenSat.1. In particular, …