ITV

Tag: Intl

  • 4Kids Entertainment secures two new intl deals at MipJunior 2005

    CANNES: American entertainment company 4Kids Entertainment has secured two new international TV deals at this year’s market.

    Cartoon Network UK has acquired Season Two of hit animated TV series One Piece. The programme will launch on Toonami next year 2006. Canal J meanwhile has acquired brand new animated series, Yu- Gi-Oh! GX. The new children’s animated show produced by 4 Kids will premiere on the French channel in December 2005.

    Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Toonami acquisitions director Cecilia Persson says, “We are pleased to strengthen our relationship further with 4 Kids and commit with the second season of the top rated kids’ show, One Piece. We look forward to continuing to grow this series on Toonami.”

    Canal J deputy MD Pierre Belaish says, “This is for Canal J, the continuation of a long partnership with 4Kids. With Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, the Yu-Gi-Oh! phenomenon should continue. The children will love Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.”

    One Piece features the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a young boy who vows to become the king of the pirates and find the greatest treasure of all – the pirate Gold Roger’s legendary One Piece. It has action, villains and a new crew member, Chopper.

    Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is the next chapter of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise targeting a younger audience. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX features new duelists, monsters, challenges and storylines.

  • Black Eyed Peas named best intl act at MTV Russia awards

    MUMBAI: Moscow’s famous Red Square was the setting for the second edition of thel MTV Russia Music Awards. The event took place a couple of days ago.
     
     

    Black Eyed Peas Named Best International Act. The event will air on MTV Russia tomorrow 24 September and is being made available to all of MTV’s 45 international channels.

    Dima Bilan won the awards for ‘Best Male Act’ and ‘Artist Of The Year’. Bilan performed an emotional potpourri of his biggest hits on a specially erected stage in the middle of Moscow city’s bridge. Another sensational moment was Russian rapper Serega’s incredible one-man daredevil performance which saw the ‘collapse’ of the main arena’s wall, illuminating the front of St Basil’s Cathedral where Serega was surrounded by 12 speeding cars as he performed his rap hit Black Boomer.
     
     

    Korn performed Pink Floyd’s legendary rebellious track Another Brick In The Wall. Finnish gothic band 69 Eyes performed their single Lost Boys’ and British star Kelly Osbourne performed a version of One Word.

    Russia’s musical ‘enfant terrible’ and one of the hottest Russian rock stars around today, Sergey Shnurov co-hosted the show with one of the country’s TV stars and models, Anna Azarova.

  • Digital Projection Intl secures contract in India for 500 projectors

    MUMBAI: Digital Projection International (DPI), which manufactures projection systems, has announced an agreement with the Mumbai based UFO Moviez. It is part of the Valuable Media Group
     
     

    DPI has sold and will install 500, 3-Chip DLP projectors in India. Valuable Media claims to be Asia’s largest vertically integrated technology solutions company in the areas of media and gaming. UFO Moviez represents this group’s first project in the digital cinema market. The third partner in this project is The Apollo Group, which has a diversity of interests including both media and commodity exports.
     
     

    UFO Moviez CEO and executive director Sanjay Gaikwad says, “We identified DPI after detailed research, trials and discussions. The unique selling point of DPI is their dedicated and unrivalled focus on DLP projection systems. Their projectors are highly evolved technically, rugged, designed for 24/7 and simply produce the best images that are ideally suited for the very discerning Indian market. It is our faith in Digital Cinema and the technology of our partners that enable us to take such an aggressive financial approach.”

    65 cinemas have already been converted in the first two months of the partnership. DPI International sales and marketing director Nick Cottiss says, “Over the last three years, we have been in discussion with many potential
    partners in India. UFO Moviez simply stood out with a high degree of experience and technical capability. They had been working on this project for some time and the structure of their thoughts, plans and business models led us to have faith and belief that this would be a success. We are very pleased with our Indian distributor, Image Engineering to be chosen as the exclusive partner for this project.”

  • Nominees announced for 21st edition of Intl Documentary Association awardsNominees announced for 21st edition of Intl Documentary Association awards

    MUMBAI: The nominees for the 21st Annual
    International Documentary Association (IDA) Distinguished Documentary Achievement Awards competition were announced. The winners will be feted at the IDA Awards Benefit Gala on 9 December 2005 in Los Angeles.
     
     

    IDA executive director Sandra Ruch says, “All of these films tell compelling stories about important subjects. They were chosen by a jury of peers out of hundreds of artfully crafted films from every part of the world. The purpose of the IDA Awards is to celebrate and recognize their successful quests for excellence.”

    The four Distinguished Documentary Achievement Award categories are Feature, Short, Limited Series (series of episodes with specific continuing theme) and Continuing Series (four individual programmes that best represent series). The 13 film documentaries that have been nominated include Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. It deals with the accounting scandal.

    Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, a multidimensional study of one of the biggest business scandals in American history. The chronicle takes a look at one of the greatest corporate disasters in history, in which top executives from the 7th largest company in this country walked away with over one billion dollars, leaving investors and employees with nothing.
     
     

    CNN’s documentary series CNN Presents has been nominated in the continuing category along with US broadcaster PBS’ Nova. IDA will also present The ABCNEWS VideoSource Award to the documentary filmmaker whose work best utilises television news footage as an integral
    component of the work. The Pare Lorentz Award will be given to the film that best represents the activist spirit and lyrical vision of Pare Lorentz, who was the first recipient of an IDA Career Achievement Award.

  • IATAS & Reed Midem to launch first Intl Interactive Emmy Awards

     

    MUMBAI: The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and Reed Midem announced that the International Academy is creating three new International Interactive Emmy Awards and a Pioneer Prize, to be presented at MipTV 2006, in partnership with Reed Midem.
     
     

    The International Interactive Emmy Awards at MipTV 2006 will take place in Cannes, France on 5 April, 2006. This is the first ever Emmy Awards Ceremony held outside of the United States. Deadline for entries is 31 October, 2005.
     

    “The International Academy is pleased to have the opportunity to recognise interactive television – a growing sector of our industry- with these new awards. These awards, and the partnership with Reed Midem, are part of the International Academy’s new strategy of participating in major events around the world, recognizing achievements on the cutting edge of our industry, and providing enhanced benefits for our members,” said Academy president and CEO Bruce Paisner.

    “The International Interactive Emmy Awards is the result of a long-standing partnership with the Academy. Now that MipTV is also an international forum for rapid technological developments, we can be assured that this annual event will become a significant date in our industry’s calendar from next year onwards,” said Reed Midem CEO and International Academy board member Paul Zilk.

    The three International Interactive Emmy Award categories are:

        Best Interactive Television Program: for television programming that has been enhanced with interactive content.
        Best Interactive Channel: for a non-linear channel that is available to the viewer on a 24/7 basis accessible through their television which allows the viewer to interact and engage with content on their television screen.
        Best Interactive Television Service: for a television service that allows users to access multiple video, audio, data and interactive applications.

    The Pioneer Prize is not an Emmy, but a special initiative of the Academy that will honor an industry personality for his/her innovative contributions to the field of interactive television.

  • Rive Gauche Intl to bring three medical reality shows to Mipcom

    MUMBAI: Television content distributor Rive Gauche International will bring three new medical reality series to the international television event Mipcom 2005 in October.

    The shows are Bagdad Medical, Lifeline With Mehmet Oz and MFI: Medical Fraud Investigators. All three series are LMNO productions, produced for Discovery Health US.

    Bagdad Medical is set forty miles north of Bagdad at the largest medical hub in Iraq—Balad Air Base and Level 3 Trauma Center. Taking viewers to the world of a war zone hospital the show follows a medical team, made up of Air Force medical personnel, reservists and volunteer doctors and nurses, as they respond to the utmost critical emergencies.

    Forced to make risky decisions daily, the team must often improvise to find solutions to the life threatening and very complex medical challenges they are faced with, all in a the intense setting of a war torn environment.

    The New York Presbyterian Hospital is the location for Lifeline with Mehmet Oz. the show follows patients dealing with enormous health emergencies. The series takes follows the various steps patients must take, along with their physicians, as they seek the cures and treatments they so desperately require. Internationally respected cardiac surgeon.

    Every year thousands of cases of medical fraud are reported to law enforcement agencies. MFI: Medical Fraud Investigators profiles the unique group of crime fighters who take on these cases, in a veritae-style show that exposes the perpetrators who pray on the sick, the vulnerable and the unsuspecting. Each hour episode profiles multiple true-life cases of medical fraud. MFI takes a close look at the criminals in their true element, as victims and eye-witnesses share the horrid details of the crimes they are victims of.

    Rive Gauche International COO Mark Rafalowski says, “These three series reflect Rive Gauche’s commitment to refreshing the content level and continuing to evolve reality programming. Bagdad and Lifeline promise to provide audiences with a candid look at some of today’s most cutting-edge medical techniques taking place in very real and exhilarating locations, while MFI offers an in-depth look at the crime of medical fraud.”

  • Crown Media sells intl business including Hallmark for $242 million

    MUMBAI: Crown Media Holdings which owns and operates the Hallmark Channel, has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its international business to a group of investors for $242 million.
     

    The sale by Crown Media includes the international versions of the Hallmark Channel. Hallmark which specialises in family oriented fare is distributed outside the US to about 60 million subscribers in 152 countries, The sale also covers the international rights to over 580 titles in the Crown Media library, and the state-of-the-art broadcast facility based in Denver, Colorado, which will continue to distribute the channels throughout the world.

    The sale has been made to a group of investors comprised of Providence Equity Partners, 3i and UK television executive David Elstein.
     
     

    As a result all employees of the international business as well as the broadcast facility will be employed by the investor group. Proceeds from the transaction will be used by Crown Media to reduce outstanding indebtedness under its bank credit facility, for the repayment of certain intercompany receivables and the payment of other liabilities.

    It was only a matter of time before Crown Media took this decision. In 2003 Crown Media’s international operations lost $21 million on about $83 million of revenue. The warning signs that Hallmark was not doing well in Asia came in 2002. That year the company closed down its Singapore sales office. It had also reduced the number feeds for the Asia Pacific region from seven to just two.

    Dwelling on the transaction Crown Media president and CEO David Evans said, “We are very pleased to have signed this agreement. We are confident that the investor group will capitalise on its global media expertise to continue to expand this international business, while we focus our efforts on maintaining the tremendous growth in ratings and distribution we have been able to generate in our domestic business. From a financial perspective, this is an excellent opportunity for our company to reduce leverage and improve our overall capital structure.”

    The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the applicable regulatory authorities. The company expects to obtain approval and complete the transaction within six weeks.

    Providence Equity Partners is a private investment firm. It specialises in equity investments in communications and media companies around the world. The principals of Providence Equity manage funds with over $9.0 billion in equity commitments.

    Elstein is a former Channel 5 CEO. He now serves as the chairman of the British Screen Advisory Council, the Commercial Radio Companies Association, Really Useful Theatres Limited, Screen Digest Limited, Sports Network and Digital Classics.

  • Int’l exhibition on ad industry in Delhi in August

    NEW DELHI: India’s first international exhibition on the advertising industry, Media Expo 2003 will be held at the Pragati Maidan, New Delhi from 8-10 August. The event is being organised by The house of Media 2000 and ESP World.

    The exhibition will stretch across all the ingredients of advertising, including Signage and POP, Outdoor Advertising, Print and Electronic Media, Photography/Film and Video, Print, Packaging and Design, Advertising Essentials, Corporate Gifts, and Promotional Material and Computers and Multimedia.

    An official release states that the expo will be spread across an area of more than 75,000 square feet. The event is aimed at filling the gap that currently exists between the ad world and outside world. It would showcase the achievements and advancements of the ad industry.

    The release states that the special attractions of the show in addition to the exhibition would include a designers and photographers gallery, advertising awards, seminars and conferences on the various essential sub heads of advertising and a fashion show.