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BEVERLY HILLS: Sony Pictures Entertainment and Starz have signed a new multi-year agreement that extends their first-run output deal for premium pay TV with new releases through 2021. The previous pact between the two covered films released through 2016. Starz is the exclusive first-run pay-TV home for Sony Pictures’ films, including …

LOS ANGELES: Endemol North America has made a round of executive promotions, including Caroline Baumgard being elevated to executive VP of development and Rob Day becoming executive VP of production. Additionally, Rob Milkes moves up to the post of executive VP of operations, strategy and corporate development, while Rob Smith …

BEVERLY HILLS: Ray Milius has been elevated to the post of executive VP of programming and IT operations at Starz. Working out of Engelwood, Colorado, Milius will be in charge of broadcast operations, post-production, engineering, transmission, media encoding, information technologies and the Starz, Encore, and Movieplex On Demand and Play …

PHILADELPHIA/LOS ANGELES: Comcast Corporation and Fox Networks have reached a deal to deliver FOX and Fox Television Stations’ entertainment, sports and local news content to Xfinity TV customers across a variety of platforms. The agreement provides Xfinity TV customers, of which there are around 22 million, with both live and on-demand programming …

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK: NBCUniversal and Hearst Corporation are rebranding the male-skewed G4 channel as the Esquire Network, starting as of April 22. The refreshed network will expand on G4’s foundation of games, gear and gadgets to reflect a broad range of interests of today’s modern men. The programming will feature …

NEW YORK/SEATTLE: CBS Corporation and Amazon.com have signed a deal to extend the amount of classic series and hit TV shows from CBS Television Distribution and Showtime Networks that are offered to Prime Instant Video customers. Through the expanded deal, America’s Next Top Model, Everybody Loves Raymond, Jericho, The L Word, Undercover …

FAIRFIELD: GE has sold its remaining 49-percent equity interest in its joint venture with Comcast, which includes NBCUniversal, for $18.1 billion. GE will sell the remaining 49 percent common equity stake in the NBCU joint venture to Comcast for $16.7 billion. GE will receive $12 billion in cash, $4 billion in …

LOS ANGELES: CBS has purchased a minority stake in Mark Cuban’s AXS TV, which will receive promotional support and access to live events programming. Launched in July of last year, AXS TV is a joint venture of Mark Cuban Companies, AEG, Creative Artist Agency and Ryan Seacrest Media. There are currently …

BURBANK: ABC Television Network has struck a new three-year partnership with the Miss America Organization, which is relocating the pageant back to Atlantic City, where it first began in 1921. New Jersey’s acting governor, Kim Guadagno, along with the Miss America Organization (MAO)’s chairman of the board, Sam Haskell, and …

WASHINGTON, D.C.: National Geographic Channel’s Sunday night premiere of Killing Lincoln averaged 3.4 million viewers in its two-hour broadcast, marking the highest total viewership in the network’s history. As the network’s first original factual drama, Killing Lincoln, which premiered just ahead of Presidents’ Day in the U.S., drew a 2.6 …