All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 59
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News
Solomon steps in at stricken TEAM Entertainment
TV industry veteran Michael Jay Solomon has joined struggling production and sales group TEAM Communications as its new chairman and chief executive. He replaces Drew Levin who has resigned with immediate effect. The company, which is quoted on the NASDAQ and Neuer Markt stock exchanges, last month warned that profits ...
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Kieslowski Awards to be rolled out across Europe
Young European talent is to get a new chance to break into the movies thanks to an extension of the Kieslowski Awards.The prizes, which have operated in France for the last three years, are now being rolled out throughout the 15 European Union countries. The scheme, which gives writers and ...
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UK DVD sales quadruple to 16 million
UK retail sales of DVDs last year were more than four times higher than in 1999, according to the British Video Association.The BVA figures show that some 16.6 million DVD Videos were sold last year compared with 4.05 million in 1999. The December total alone, at 4.71 million, was higher ...
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Euro quartet team up for feature-length docs
Tapping into the growing demand for feature-length documentaries, four European producers have launched a joint venture to produce a slate of creative docs.The quartet is made up of Fabienne Servan-Schreiber of France's Cineteve, Domenico Procacci of Italy's Fandango, Karl "Baumi" Baumgartner of Germany's Pandora and Rosa Bosch of UK-Mexican production ...
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Kinowelt bags $78m by offloading Alliance shares
German major Kinowelt has sold half of its shares in Canada's Alliance Atlantis Communications (AAC), but says that the strategic alliance between the two groups will continue.After the German stock market closed yesterday (Tuesday) Kinowelt announced that it had sold 6.3 million class B shares, its entire holding of the ...
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Sky Global float dependent on merger talks
News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch said that he may not press ahead with the proposed flotation of his satellite operations under the Sky Global Networks banner.Murdoch said the need for a flotation would be determined by News Corp's ongoing talks to acquire DirecTV from Hughes Electronics and separate talks to ...
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TEAM profit warning sends shares on 25% slide
TEAM Communications, the German-US film and TV licensing group, saw its shares plunge 25% to Euros2.7 on Frankfurt's disaster strewn Neuer Markt after it put out a profit warning.The company said: "revenue and earnings for the financial year ended December 31, 2000 will be below the company's prior expectations." It ...
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Star to launch Hindi PPV service in the UK
News Corp's Asian satellite platform Star TV, which this week launched two channels in the UK, is months away from setting up a British pay-per-view (PPV) service for Hindi movies.Peter Mukerjea, chief executive of News Television (India), told Screen International that the Hindi film services would be operational "within a ...
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ABN Amro downgrades European media stock
While their technology cousins have been staging a modest recovery, there was more bad news yesterday (Wed, Jan 17) for media shares. ABN Amro, the giant Dutch owned investment bank, downgraded its investment ratings for the shares of most of Europe's media industries.ABN said the best value to be found ...
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Time Warner, AOL merge with new media conditions
Controversial new media conditions hit Time Warner and America Online as the price for the last piece of regulatory approval for the two company's proposed merger.The US's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave its approval for the takeover - the last clearance necessary for the $105bn deal to go ahead - ...
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Murdoch readies float for Global Networks
News Corp is reported to be moving ahead again with plans to float off its satellite holding division, Sky Global Networks.According to unconfirmed wire reports, News Corp is pressing ahead with preparations for the flotation in parallel with ongoing talks to acquire US satellite giant DirecTV, from Hughes Electronics. The ...
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Helkon's Peppermint appoints Daniel Otto as buyer
High-profile film buyer Daniel Otto is to become head of acquisitions at Helkon-backed sales and finance outfit Peppermint. Otto joins the outfit after four years of acquisitions in the film department of KirchMedia. Peppermint was established in March of last year, with a slate focused primarily on TV programming, but ...
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AOL, Time Warner poised to get merger greenlight
Time Warner shares rose 8% this week as market expectations grew that the last piece of the regulatory jigsaw delaying America Online (AOL)'s takeover of the media giant is about to fall into place.The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to give its approval to the deal some time this ...
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Latin American admissions on the rise
Cinema admissions in Latin America grew by 7% last year thanks to the influence of multiplex building, according to figures from UK consultants Dodona Research.Dodona's data shows that audiences grew from 272 million to 290 million in the seven major Latin countries. It forecasts that Audiences will growth another 25% ...
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DVD future has Vegas video conference in a spin
How to exploit the potential of DVD divided delegates at this week's Las Vegas Video Software Dealers' Association after Blockbuster Video pushed for creating a rental window for the format.Blockbuster, which recently begun trials of video-on-demand (VoD) movies, aims for the move to allow time for DVDs to be available ...
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Carlton, New Select partner on trio for Japan
London-based sales house Carlton International has signed a three-picture deal with Japan's New Select for star-driven TV action films. New Select is buying TV, DVD and video rights in Japan to Rough Air: Danger On Flight 534, Tin Can Alley and Maiden Voyage. All three are produced by Carlton America ...
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German shares slashed, Intertainment battered
German film stocks continued to fall despite stockmarket bouyancy over the recent holiday period as four companies lost at least a quarter of their value in the three weeks after December 15.Intertainment was hardest hit, being stripped of almost two-thirds of its value as it waged a public war with ...
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Festival calendar gets FIAPF re-write
After a year which saw changes amongst top staff at many leading festivals, 2001 seems set to be the year of changes to the festival calendar.According to FIAPF - the organisation which regulates standards at festivals - there are major shifts at four of the 11 top non-competitive festivals. There ...
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EC greenlights Universal, NTL pay-TV film service
The European Commission has approved plans for The Studio Channel, a UK pay-TV joint venture between cable giant NTL and Universal Studios Networks.The greenlight came after the Commission's analysis showed that the creation of the library film service will neither create nor reinforce a dominant position in any market. The ...
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EIB unwraps Euros500m audiovisual fund
Upwards of Euros500m of new loans will be made available to Europe's audiovisual industries under a new scheme launched Tuesday (Dec 19) by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB)."This financial package is intended to improve the competitivity of the industry and to favour the development of European ...