TELENOVELA BLOCK.pages 24 - 30: - Discop

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BENEATH THE RADAR
By Bob Jenkins
Apace Media has successfully
raised GBP7 million in a London
rights issue to fund corporate acquisitions
and development. The company,
which already owns two stations in
Bulgaria, has used some of this money
to acquire a 50% stake in Diema
Vision from the owners Diema Group.
Under the terms of the deal Apace will
acquire a further 16% over the next
two years. The company already owns
66% of Bulgarian outfit MMTelevizia,
which owns a television production
company and the business and music
channels MMTV and M2. This
GBP450,000 acquisition was completed
in September. Apace is chaired
by Didier Stoessel, the former head
banking giant HSBC.
British distributor, Centre Film
Sales, has picked up international
distribution to BLIND, a six part detective
from Uzbekistan. Available in both
Uzbek and Russian, BLIND tells the
story of a soldier invalided out of the
army when an accident cost him his
sight, and who decides, improbably, to
become a private investigator
British mini-major RDF has acquir -
ed the largest Scottish producer,
and second largest UK independent,
IWC. Formed in May 2004 with the
merger of Wark Clements and Ideal
World Productions, IWC has been
responsible for a wide range of drama
and factual programming for all the
UK’s leading broadcasters including
such titles as COMMANDO VIP, NO
SEX PLEASE – WE’RE TEENAGERS
and ROSS KEMP ON GANGS. All the
top five IWC executives, including
Managing Director Sue Oriel and
Creative Directors Alan Clements,
Hamish Barbour, Zad Rogers and
Eileen Quinn will remain with the company
under the new ownership.
It has been announced by All3Media
that Russia’s TNT has commis sion -
ed twenty-three episodes of the entertainment
game show shot in a taxi
cab, CASH CAB. Produced by
ALL3Media subsidiary, Lion TV, the
CASH CAB commission was brokered
by Scre entime Partners. CASH CAB
airs on ITV in the UK, and Discovery in
the US.
Hungarian MMDS Antenna has
reached agreement with Euro -
News to carry the channel in five different
languages, English, French,
German, Russian and Spanish. Euro -
News is estimated to already be in
155 million homes in 102 countries,
giving it a larger audience than CNN
and BBC World combined. The deal
with Antenna adds another 1.2 million
homes to those numbers.
Buena Vista International Television
(BVITV) has agreed the first ever
reversioning of its hit comedy, HOME
IMPROVEMENT, with Russian broadcaster
CTC. The hit comedy, which ran
on ABC in the US from 1991 – 1999,
was a big success both in the US,
where 202 episodes were produced
and also internationally.
Announcing the deal Philippe
Maigret, Senior Vice-President,
Sales and Portfolio Development,
BVITV, commented, “we’re pleased to
be concluding this agreement to produce
HOME IMPROVEMENT locally for
the first time whilst we look to exploit
the great reversioning potential of our
whole library of evergreen series as
local productions in international markets.”
CEO of CTC, Alexander Rod -
nyansky, added, “HOME IMPROVE -
MENT’s great comedy and characters
will be sure to be a success with viewers
in Russia, as the original US series
has been worldwide.”
BBC Motion Gallery, the footage
sales business of BBC Worldwide,
has announced the appointment of
Linda Reeve as Sales Director. Repor -
t ing to Commercial Director, Mark
Fricker, Reeve will have overall responsibility
for the London-based sales
team and for developing the business
within the broadcast market. Reeve
joins the BBC from ITN Archive, which
she joined in 1999, rising to be head
of ITN Archive worldwide sales in
2004.
Asignificant merger is underway in
France, which is set to create the
country’s second largest audio-visual
production group. La Financiere Hera
(Finhera) is set to merge with
Marathon, producer and distributor of
hit series such as ST TROPEZ and
TOTALLY SPIES. Finhera is a subsidiary
of Bridgepoint Investment
Fund, and is the sole shareholder in
Tele Images, and the majority shareholder
in Adventure Line Production
(ALP). Once the normal process of due
diligence has been completed, the status
of Finhera will change to that of a
company with a board of management
and a supervisory board, but all existing
production and distribution brands
will continue to operate as present,
with their own editorial independence,
but under the new Finhera structure.
Sony-owned, pan regional channel
AXN has announced that it is to
produce a Central European version of
the three-time Emmy award winning
reality adventure series, THE AMAZ-
ING RACE. AXN will bring the local version
of THE AMAZING RACE to its
viewers across Poland, Slovakia, the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania
and Bulgaria. Two teams from six
Central European countries will compete
for the grand prize of
US$100,000. Each team consists of
two people already in a close relationship,
such as spouses, partners or
parents and children. They are filmed
around the clock as they travel, across
many countries and are set mentally
and physically challenging tasks that
will test their abilities, determination,
and the strength of their relationship.
THE AMAZING RACE is available
through Buena Vista International
Television.
Liberty-Global owned Extreme
Sports Channel is launching a
Polish feed early in 2006. The new
feed will be supported by locally produced
programming, events to be
staged in Poland, local on-air promotion
and a Polish version of its web
site. The announcement follows the
recent agreement between Polsat
DTH and Extreme, which now adds the
Polish carrier to its partners in the
country. }
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