Universal Pictures International Entertainment and StudioCanal are teaming to create France’s leading home entertainment distributor, they jointly announced Wednesday.As a solo entity, Universal Pictures France held a 8.5% share of the Euros 1.5 billion ($2.05 billion) home entertainment market in France. The new joint venture, which will become operational in January 2008 as Universal StudioCanal Video, will also distribute new films from StudioCanal and titles from the French film company’s 5,000 strong library.Pact represents yet another example of a new rapprochement between Universal and StudioCanal, erstwhile partners in the ill-fated Vivendi Universal merger. Vivendi, StudioCanal’s parent company via its ownership of Canal Plus Group, also still owns a 20% stake in NBC Universal.Earlier this year the two film companies renewed a worldwide video and TV distribution deal, excluding the U.S., which sees Universal handle international sales on StudioCanal’s behalf.

UPIE also handles sales marketing and distribution of StudioCanal DVDs in various territories, under a deal set up in 2003 and recently extended to 2010.

StudioCanal is also Universal’s partner in Working Title.

About StudioCanal

StudioCanal, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Canal+ Group, is a major player in France and Europe in the financing, acquisition and distribution of cinema films.Supported by a very comprehensive catalogue which now comprises more than 5000 French, English and American films, StudioCanal has acquired a unique position in all lines of business: cinema distribution, video*, TV sales and international sales, generating annual revenues of 400 million euros. 

Wheel Of Fortune, which has ranked as television’s #1 syndicated series every year since its premiere, marks its historic 25th season with all new shows beginning on Monday, September 10, 2007.

The season-long celebration kicks off with Wheel Of Fortune returning to the famed Radio City Music Hall in New York to tape three weeks of shows. For the first time, Wheel Of Fortune is partnering with PEOPLE, the world’s most popular magazine, for “PEOPLE Celebrity Week,” a star-studded week of shows that will feature actors, musicians and sports icons, each paired with a fan. While the fans play for cash and prizes, the celebrities will spin the wheel for their favorite charities. Other theme weeks to be taped in New York include “Best Friends Week,” featuring New York-area buddies playing together; and “Heroes Week,” honoring firefighters, police officers, paramedics and more from the Tri-State Area. These three weeks of shows will air November 5-23.

In celebration of the landmark anniversary, Wheel Of Fortune is introducing the “25″ wedge, which will be available in the second round of the show. When the wheel lands on this wedge, the contestant has the chance to win a special prize in multiples of 25, such as 25 gift certificates each worth $100.00.

Throughout Wheel Of Fortune’s 25 seasons, the show has been synonymous with big money. Now, contestants will have the opportunity to take home even more cash as Round three of the show will be the “Big Money! Round.” At the start of this round, a unique, state-of-the-art electronic monitor will be featured on the upper portion of one of the wedges. When the wheel starts spinning, this monitor will randomly shuffle and stop on $5,000, $7,500, $25,000, Lose A Turn or Bankrupt. If a contestant lands on one of these cash amounts, calls a correct letter and goes on to solve the puzzle, the dollar amount is added to his/her total. This exciting new addition marks the first time a wedge will change during the game.

In March 2008, Wheel Of Fortune will travel to Chicago, the hometown of Pat Sajak, and tape15 episodes from the Navy Pier. The three weeks of shows will air in May 2008.

An impressive 47 million people watch Wheel Of Fortune every week and its ratings rival most prime-time shows.

Wheel Of Fortune can be seen on over 200 stations across the country and is produced by Sony Pictures Television, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company. It is distributed domestically and internationally by CBS Television Distribution, a unit of CBS Corp.

Sony Ericsson and Orange today announce the extension of their hugely successful music partnership, which has seen Orange sell over two million Sony Ericsson Walkman® handsets which  feature the Orange full track music download service, Orange Music Store, in just over 12 months. The partnership has made Orange the leading provider of Walkman® phones across its nine European markets.

The Sony Ericsson Walkman® handsets are part of Orange’s successful Signature Series, which gives customers one click access to Orange Music Store. Orange users of Sony Ericsson Walkman® handsets consume 50% more music than average music phone customers.

This next phase of the partnership brings about the creation of a range of local music marketing campaigns including the sponsorship of a unique TV, online and mobile content deal, mobileAct. Orange expects to exceed three million Walkman® music device sales by end of 2007 and will launch the W660i, W910i and W580i Walkman® handsets, which are compatible with its high speed mobile networks (3G, EDGE or HSDPA).

mobileAct was successfully piloted in Switzerland in 2006 and launches in the UK with Channel 4 in October accompanied by a web site www.mobileact.co.uk.  A Swiss launch will follow shortly after with further launches, in France and across the rest of Orange’s European footprint, being considered.

The partnership will generate interest in the new Walkman handsets available through Orange and provide exclusive content to drive mobile music uptake. mobileAct content will be available across the three platforms of TV, online and mobile and a range of local activities such as artist sponsorship and joint advertising campaigns will also take place across Orange’s nine European markets.

In the UK, mobileAct is the first series to appear on both of Channel 4’s flagship zones, T4 and 4music. It aims to unearth real talent - young bands that write and perform their own music. The search will be led by a panel of well-known, credible artists and music mentors. The UK winners will be signed to an album deal with a major record label.

WALKMAN® is the trademark of Sony Corporation 

About Orange 

Orange is a key brand of the France Telecom Group, providing mobile, broadband, fixed, business and entertainment services across Europe. It is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with more than 150 million customers on five continents.

In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99% of the UK population. At the end of March 31 2007, Orange had over 16.5 million customers in the UK - 15.1 million active mobile customers and over 1.5 million Internet customers.

From 4th September onwards, Freebox TV will significantly increase its cinema, sport and youth offer by broadcasting 7 new channels, following on from the agreement signed with the Canal + Group:

- TPS Star, the premium cinema and sport channel

- Cinécinéma Star

- Cinécinéma Culte

- Cinécinéma Classic- Sport +, the best of live and exclusive sport

- Piwi, toddlers’ TV

- Télétoon, child TV channel

These new channels will complete the Freebox TV package, already made up of more than 200 television channels.

About Free

Free is a subsidiary of Iliad.The Iliad Group is a major operator on the French Internet access and Telecommunications market with Free (2,626,000 ADSL subscribers at 30.06.07), Onetel and Iliad Télécom (fixed telephony operators) and IFW (Wimax). The Iliad Group is listed on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris under the abbreviation ILD.

The Nielsen Company announced that beginning today it will produce all national Hispanic ratings  through its National People Meter (NPM) panel, the same sample that is used to produce ratings for non-Hispanic networks.   This will put national Spanish-language television on a level playing field with English-language television, providing a common ratings number for all national networks.As a consequence of providing ratings from a single national sample for all television networks regardless of language, Nielsen will retire its separate National Hispanic People Meter (NHPM) panel, which has measured Hispanic households since 1992.  This completes a transition that started in late 2005, when a number of Spanish language networks began to use ratings data from the NPM sample.The growth of Hispanic television in recent years has resulted from the growing market power of the Hispanic population as a whole:

·        The number of Hispanic viewers in the U.S. has risen from 22.2 million, or 9% of the total U.S. population, in 1992-93 to 38.9 million, or 14% of the total population in 2005-06.   

·        Ad spending on Spanish-language network and cable television has grown from approximately $1.8 billion in 2001 to more than $3.05 billion in 2006, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

 ·        In the 1992-1993 television season, there were two national Spanish-language broadcast networks, attracting a combined average primetime audience of 2.4 million Hispanic viewers.  In the 2006-2007 television season, there were four national Spanish-language broadcast networks with a combined average primetime audience of 4.1 million Hispanic viewers.

“By providing the marketplace with a single source of television ratings regardless of language, Nielsen will allow the television industry to evaluate both English and Spanish language television and audiences side-by-side,” said Sara Erichson, Executive Vice President, Nielsen Media Research North America. “This step is part of Nielsen’s commitment to continuously improve the quality and accuracy of its measurement and to ensure that our measurements reflect the growing diversity of the entire U.S. population.” 

Nielsen’s move to a single national sample comes on the heels of a significant ongoing expansion of its National People Meter sample.  Today, the sub-sample of Hispanic households within the NPM panel is both larger and more representative of the U.S. Hispanic population than the 1000-home National Hispanic People Meter panel that is being retired.  As a consequence, the NPM has become a more accurate and complete gauge of Hispanic viewing than the separate Hispanic panel.

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek), trade shows and the newspaper sector (Scarborough Research). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands and New York, USA.

CNN.com and Google announced an agreement today that enlists Google’s AdSense™ advertising program to deliver site targeted advertising to CNN.com.

Through this collaboration, the AdSense service places contextually relevant ads alongside CNN.com content, allowing both small and large advertisers to target CNN.com specifically and connect with high quality content and traffic. Under the terms of the deal, Google will serve as the exclusive provider of auction-based text advertisements throughout CNN.com.“At CNN.com, our mission is laser-focused on providing up-to-the-minute news and information to our users,” said David Payne, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com. “Our new relationship with Google will deliver relevant ads to our users, enhancing their overall experience on CNN.com. We look forward to a successful partnership.”

About CNN.com

CNN.com is the world’s No. 1 destination for online and wireless news, garnering the greatest audience share among current events and global news sites. Launched in 1995, CNN.com draws from the resources of CNN Worldwide and its many partners to provide consumers with the most enriching, immediate interaction with news anywhere, seamlessly combining articles, videos, images, interactive features and user-generated content.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.

SRC Records, home to such multiplatinum-selling artists as Akon, David Banner, Terror Squad and Wu-Tang Clan, has entered into a publishing agreement with Rondor Music to launch Merokee Music. The announcement was made today by Steve Rifkind, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SRC Records, Rich Isaacson co-Founder of Merokee Music, Lance Freed, President of Rondor Music, and Ron Moss, Executive Vice President of Creative for the company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Rondor will fund, co-own and administer all new signings and releases through Merokee Music which will be affiliated with artists and producer/writers signed to SRC.  SRC Records is distributed through Universal Music Group, the world’s leading music company.

About Rondor

Almo/Irving Music was founded in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss as the original domestic publishing arm of their newly-formed A&M Records. In 1966 the company, with only 200 copyrights, began to reach out for new songs and writers. Today, Rondor Music International publishes more than 80,000 titles covering all musical styles and genres.

Rondor songs have captured a number of Grammy awards over the years including “From A Distance”, written by Julie Gold (1991), “Tears In Heaven”, written by Will Jennings and Eric Clapton (1993) and “My Heart Will Go On” written by Will Jennings and James Horner (1998) and “Red Dirt Girl, written by Emmylou Harris (2004).

About Universal Music Group
 
Universal Music Group is the world’s leading music company with wholly owned record operations or licensees in 77 countries. Its businesses also include Universal Music Publishing Group, the industry’s largest global music publishing operation.
 
The Universal Music Group owns the most extensive catalog of music in the industry, which is marketed through two distinct divisions, Universal Music Enterprises (in the U.S.) and Universal Strategic Marketing (outside the U.S.). Universal Music Group also includes eLabs, a new media and technologies division, and Universal Music Mobile.
 
Universal Music Group is a unit of Vivendi, a global media and communications company.