James Murdoch has been overwhelmingly re-elected as a director to the Sky board following an AGM vote Friday. Murdoch received 95.65% in his favor, with 4.35% against. He had faced a protest earlier in the week in the form of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum. The investment group, which owns approximately 2% of…

Huayi Brothers Media, China’s biggest private film company, has inked deals with two of China’s biggest internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent, that has seen it raise $590 million (RMB3.6 billion) through a private placing of new shares. The strategic agreement with online giant Alibaba,  which currently has a larger…

Warner Bros isn’t talking, but Dutch media is reporting today that the company is in talks to acquire Netherlands-based TV producer Eyeworks, Reuters said. Warner Bros International Television Production already has a majority stake in UK production group Shed Media and in BlazHoffski Holdingan, an indie producer that…

It looks like no renewal deal is coming today for Fox’s veteran medical drama House. Or Bones. The network’s two longest-running and strongest drama series are in a similar position: both have been the subject of complex, drawn-out renewal negotiations as neither has a deal for next season. In both cases, the studios…

EXCLUSIVE: Ed Decter and John Strauss, creators/executive producers of Sony Pictures TV’s hourlong pilot for A&E Big Mike, have signed a two-year overall deal with Sony. Outside of the deal, which starts in June, the co-writers of There’s Something About Mary serve as executive producers on In Plain Sight. They joined…

EXCLUSIVE: As HBO prepares to unveil its epic-sized series adaptation of George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones this Sunday, the payweb has begun talks to acquire the Neil Gaiman novel American Gods to be developed into another fantasy series. The project was brought to HBO by Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary…

Underscoring the dearth of repeatable new procedurals on the broadcast networks, another CBS crime drama has landed a rich cable syndication deal very early into its run. TNT has nabbed off-network rights to CBS’ freshman Hawaii Five-0 for a license fee just north of $2 million, in line with the recent record-breaking…

EXCLUSIVE: Adult Swim has picked up a second season of the live-action comedy Eagleheart, starring Chris Elliott. The quarter-hour series, a parody of butt-kicking crime dramas like Walker, Texas Ranger, hails from Conan O’Brien’s Conaco Prods. It was set up while O’Brien and Conaco were still based at NBC but now…

EXCLUSIVE: Nickelodeon has greenlit a fifth season of its flagship live-action series iCarly. After locking in star Miranda Cosgrove with a new deal, the network has ordered 13 new episodes of the comedy, which will begin production in 2012 for a premiere later that year. The renewal comes on the heels of the most…

EXCLUSIVE: TV, film and comic book writer Mark Verheiden has been tapped to co-write with Akiva Goldsman the NBC TV series The Dark Tower. The project is part of a massive joint deal Universal Pictures and NBC Universal TV Entertainment signed back in September to turn Stephen King's opus of best-selling novels…

TruTV, which has been on a ratings upswing, got an additional boost last month when it launched its first high-profile sports franchise, sharing with TNT, TBS and CBS the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship coverage. At its second annual upfront today, the network announced a slew of series renewals and…

Comedy writer-producer Mike Sikowitz, executive producer on the CBS comedy Rules of Engagement, has inked a two-year overall deal with the series’ producer Sony Pictures Television. Under the seven-figure pact, which starts in June, Sikowitz will continue as an exec producer on Rules if the sitcom returns for a sixth…