Video Age International articles from October 2000

Video Age International archives from October 2000

Redefining Midseason.
October 1, 2000... What exactly does "midseason mean Short answer: The general time period -- anywhere from January through April -- in which networks swap selected fall shows with midseason replacements (a.k.a. "the second season"). Now the traditional concept...

Italy Boots Out Foreign Media.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Leave all hopes (of entering Italy's telecommunication industry) behind, you foreigners. Sounds like a verse from Dante's Inferno for the non-Italians unable to circumvent the roadblocks guarding Italy's telecommunication and media companies....

Fair Use: A Debate.
October 1, 2000... New definition of piracy examined Alas, Dam Serafini's editorial suffers from a lack of understanding of the Fair Use provision under the Copyright Law. Fair Use is not a right to be exercised by users of copyrighted material. Rather, it...

My Two Cents.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Nowadays, as Bertelsmann Broadband Group's Werner Lauff indicated in Video Age's front-cover story in May, we tend to think of our industry in terms of big "Cs": convergence, consumer, content, consolidation, e-commerce, connectivity and...

A&E History: 3 Launches, 1 Week.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... In the span of seven days, A&E Television Networks announced the launching of three History-branded channels: one each in Israel, Turkey and China. The History Channel can now be viewed in Israel courtesy of the Jerusalem-based Tel-Ad...

Greek Antenna TV Into Bulgaria.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Greece's Antenna TV announced its acquisition of stakes in three Bulgarian media companies. Shelling out $3.7 million, Antenna grabbed 100 percent of Nova Television and Multimex and a 94 percent stake in Radio Express. Nova Television is...

Pearson TV Ups Bohm to Senior VP.(Pauline Bohm)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Pearson Television promoted Pauline Bohm to senior vp of International Marketing last month. In her new role, Bohm will supervise all marketing and creative activities for international festivals as well as oversee all product advertising...

NASDAQ Clips Cinar's Wings.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Canadian animation company Cinar Corp. plans to request that New York-based NASDAQ review its decision to remove the company from its stock-marker list. NASDAQ was concerned that two Cinar co-founders remained on the board following the...

Big Apple Hosts Asian Film Fest.(Asian American International Film Festival)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... The Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) kicked off its 23rd anniversary this summer in New York featuring more than 20 films and documentaries made by directors of Asian descent. Producer, director and festival executive John...

Murdoch Caches Millionaire to India.(Rupert Murdoch)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... The format Who Wants to Be a Millionaire has become equally successful in spreading "millions" to Rupert Murdoch's Star TV in India. Called Kaun Banega Crorepati, the program is telecast in Hindi with English subtitles. "When Rupert...

CAMAR TV 2000 Covers Women in Middle East.(Cairo International Market for Radio and TV)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Organizers of the sixth annual Cairo International Market for Radio and TV (CAMAR TV 2000) heralded an ever-increasing turn-out for last July's festivities. "CAMAR TV brought together more than 100 Middle Eastern producers along with three...

Net Sul Caves into Globo Cabo.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Brazilian pay-TV giant Globo Cabo disclosed a pricey $900 million take-over of competitor Net Sul, controlled by Rede Brazil Sul (RBS), creating South America's largest pay-TV company. To complete the transaction, 124 million common shares...

Venevision and Playboy Int'l in Bed Together.(Venevision International)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Venevision International signed an agreement with Playboy TV International to serve as the exclusive sales representative of Playboy-branded programming to free-TV broadcasters throughout Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Venevision's...

Hungry for TV on UPC Hungary.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Amsterdam-based UPCtv is unveiling two new channels, Club and Avante, on the UPC Hungary cable network. UPC Hungary currently reaches about 450,000 households throughout the country. Club is already available to more than 40,000 subscribers...

A Mouse House of Cards.(review)(Review)
October 1, 2000... HOW MICHAEL EISNER LOST HIS GRIP How do certain people rise to power, and what makes them fall? With a title suggesting that Disney head-honcho Michael Eisner is about to be toppled from his throne, Kim Masters sniffed behind the scenes in...

Reality-TV Trend Rides Wave Across Atlantic.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... U.S. viewers experiencing "Schadenfreude" When it comes to primetime television, what once was old is new again. In the wake of the unexpected success of Survivor and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, reality television (which in this case...

Broadcasters Call the Shots at Licensing 2K.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... A millennial development in the global licensing industry is the growing demand of foreign broadcasters for a piece of the pie. Broadcasters are forming their own merchandising cliques or insisting on a portion of profits as a bargaining chip...

MIPCOM Opens to MIPNET: Caution Advised.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... No sooner had Reed Midem conference organizers christened the new Espace Riviera exhibition space at last April's MIP-TV than they revamped the section, name and all. The Espace Riviera opened at MIP-TV 2000, hosting such large media...

NATPE's Bruce Johansen Neutral on HDTV, Pro Education.(National Association of Television Program Executives)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... The clock is ticking and time is running out. In a mere six years, all of the analog television channels in the U.S. are to be shut down and auctioned off to the highest bidder, paving the way for digital-only channels and HDTV programming. The...

Jornadas Hosts TAP's "Summit of the Americas".(Television Association of Programmers)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... The Argentine Cable TV Association (ATVC) is adding a twist to its yearly Jornadas cable fest, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina October 17-20. The third afternoon of this year's Jornadas has been reserved for the second annual "Summit of the...

Book Gives Variety Black & Blue Eyes & Stars.(Review)
October 1, 2000... I received a copy of a limited-numbered edition of Peter Besas' latest book, "Inside 'Variety': The Story of the Bible of Show Business." It is copy No. 288 out of 750 total copies. Besas, originally from New York, was Variety's Madrid bureau...

Dribbling Against Tradition, Women's Athletics Take Hold.(basketball and soccer)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... With the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) just concluding its fourth season and the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) set to premiere this spring, professional women's sports leagues have captured the hearts of television...

Microcast Armed with Dot-Com Macroplan.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... A model with no cash up front for content providers Offering broadcasters and program distributors an Internet-based distribution pipeline at virtually no risk, Microcast aims to make video delivery online viable at a time when the pressure...

PVRs Scrambling to Offer VOD TV Services.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Next year is shaping up to be a banner year for video-on-demand (VOD) services, especially with the introduction of TiVo and ReplayTV set-top boxes that now allow viewers to digitally record programs. Starz Encore Group's vp of SVOD...

TeleMonteCarlo: A 25-Year Saga.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... According to published reports, SEAT (which is 29 percent controlled by Telecom Italia) paid $375 million for 75 percent of TeleMonteCarlo's (TMC) two national networks. Of this amount, $125 million paid some of TMC's debts and the...

Americans, Swiss Rescue Italian Film Industry.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Despite an 18.5 percent jump in the number of Italian cinema screens (now 3,500), overall admissions for the 1999-2000 box office season registered just a 2 percent increase with 68.9 million tickets generating grosses of $374 million. ...

Acquisition & Production: Leone Gets Lion's Share.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... To explain the rather complex new production and acquisition developments at RAI, Video Age had to call upon an industry heavyweight: Giancarlo Leone, the 44-year-old president and CEO of RAI Cinema, a fully-owned subsidiary of RAI. Leone was...

Italy's Frequency Problems.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... A recent survey wrecked the myth of the potent Latin lover by exposing the infrequency of love-making activities among Italian men. However, there is another frequency problem in Italy. Available airwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum are so...

Animator Gets the Italian Financial Market Animated.(Mondo TV)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Mondo TV the Rome-based animation company (www.mondotv.it), is on top of the world since it went public this summer on Italy's New Stock Exchange (Nuovo Mercato). "Boom of Bidders for Mondo TV IPO" was the headline in II Sole 24 Ore the day...

Studio Universal Lets Promos Do the Work.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Picture the scene on one of RAI's or Mediaset's TV networks: A scantily-clad woman hands a microphone to a host just facing from a pool who intones, "Don't forget to tune in tonight at 8!" This is the on-air promotion style of many...

Di Russo Adds New Dimensions to RAITrade.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... RAITrade, the international marketing arm of RAI, has recently expanded its scope under the presidency of Roberto Di Russo. On top of its traditional radio and TV sales division and home video department, RAITrade is now involved in music...

No "Boloney" For Prix Italia.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... New Yorkers can recognize the slang "boloney" which (according to the Dictionary of Unconventional English) was coined in 1900 as a corruption of Bologna sausage and means "nonsense." Well, the northern Italian city of Bologna was the venue...

RAI Int'l: A Mother's Voice for Italians Abroad.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... In the debate about the possible privatization of RAI, one division that will clearly remain in the "public" sector is RAI International. Founded six years ago, RAI International covers Europe, the Americas, Australia, Asia and Africa. ...

Miffed by MIFED.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... Everyone would like to make MIFED better, but no one seems able to do it. It's like an irresistible urge for many Italian industry leaders: to take hold of this slumping film-TV market that could be restored to its past glory with little...