A Look Ahead
RATES: Fox has a killer Sunday with season premieres of "The Simpsons" and "X-Files," but NBC and ABC also do well on the night. Last week, NBC's "Today" averaged more than 7 million viewers, the second most-watched week in the history of morning television (following the week when Hillary Clinton appeared on the show in the wake of l'affaire Lewinsky).
BMG: Music industry reacts to the news that Michael Dornemann and Strauss Zelnick will ankle BMG.
ELECTION: The news networks gear up for election and are pledging that they will not release exit polls ahead of time. Internet players are taking a different tack.
LABOR: SAG and Hollywood's top agents continue negotiations over a new operating agreement for agents. Also, the Tiger Woods trial board will be held today.
NATO & FCC: Theater owners respond to the Federal Trade Commission report and outline new guidelines for R-rated trailers and other initiatives.
NEW LINE: New Line is pitching to TV station groups "Hard Knox," a proposed syndicated weekly action hour with Thomas Calabro, Lee Majors and the Australian martial-arts performer Kim-Maree Penn. Planned air date is fall 2001.
LEGIT: Broadway grosses report.
EXEC SHUFFLE
- Disney Studios' Peter Schneider and Dick Cook name new presidents for homevid division, breaking up the recently departed (for Microsoft) Mitch Koch's job into domestic and international arenas, with longtime Disney video vets Bob Chapek and Dennis Maguire getting bumped up to president Buena Vista Home Entertainment and BVHE Intl., respectively.
- Turner Entertainment Group has named Jonathan Katz to senior VP of worldwide program planning and acquisitions. Katz was VP of marketing for CNN Newssource Sales.
- Vince Manze, executive VP and creative director of the NBC Agency, NBC's inhouse full-service ad agency, has been upped to co-president.
- Michael Johnson tapped as senior VP of R&B promotion at Arista Records.
BUSINESS
AOL TW: Shares of AOL and Time Warner outpaced an upbeat market Monday as the first outlines of the partners' giant merger may be starting to take shape. Time Warner stock jumped 5% to $83.40 and AOL's rose 4.6% to $55.86. Investors took heart, it seems, that the companies are indeed in the homestretch of regulatory approval for their deal, which was announced last January.
COMCAST: Comcast Corp. on Monday reported a big jump in third-quarter profits including two one-time gains, as operating cash flow increased in line with expectations.
SONY: Sony Corp. of America announces a new division, S Media Market Corp., that's a Web-based media exchange for buyers and sellers of TV programming.
WORLD NEWS
CANADA DEMERS: Seasoned Canuck film producer Rock Demers has revived the "Tales for All" kidpic series that he ended three years ago after 16 features.
CANADA GLOBAL TV: Global Television has set up a C$750,000 ($500,000) fund to help first-time British Columbia-based producers make documentaries that "reflect the unique experience of life on Canada's west coast."
SCANDI MTG: Scandinavian media company Modern Times Group, on the back of some fast-paced expansion over the last month, has posted record earnings and profits for the first nine months of this year.
CZECH MILK: Less than three months after acquiring its own Prague stages, L.A.-based production outfit Milk & Honey is looking to expand.
SOUTH AFRICA MARKET: Filmmakers, buyers and distributors from across Africa, Europe and the United States will converge near Cape Town next week for the fifth edition of the Southern African Intl. Film and Television Market, known as Sithengi.
REVIEWS
FILM: Red Planet; Joseph: King of Dreams
TV: Napoleon
MUSIC: Bad Religion; Don Byron; Solas; the Troggs; Shakti
LEGIT: Downstream
