More trouble and reorg continues at TV Guide Network: Ryan O’Hara, president of TV Guide Network and TVGuide.com is leaving to take a new position in New York, co-parents Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) and investor One Equity Partners announced today. O’Hara, who had been at TVG for eight years, already has…

Last month, Viacom (NYSE: VIA) CEO Phillipe Dauman confidently said he expected new premium network Epix to add more distribution partners before its fall launch but the Oct. 30 launch date announced this week still has only one launch partner: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) FiOS. The joint venture of Viacom, Paramount,…

Low-cost DVD-rental service Redbox has brokered a new distribution deal with Lionsgate. The deal, which gives Redbox access to Lionsgate’s new releases the same day they go up for sale elsewhere, could net the studio an estimated $158 million over five years, according to an SEC filing by Redbox owner…

An interesting announcement from TV Guide Network as it continues the push to be seen as an entertainment destination. In its first major move since being acquired by Lionsgate and One Equity Partners, Multichannel News reports the network has acquired the exclusive basic-cable syndication rights to ABC’s Ugly Betty. The…

That was quick, and brings back things full circle, sort of: Lionsgate Entertainment has sold off 49 percent stake in TV Guide network and the online properties to One Equity, for about $123 million. This comes only three months after it outbid One Equity, the PE arm of J.P. Morgan…

Carl Icahn didn’t get his seats on the board of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., but now he’s found a different way to gain sway over the company’s direction—and potentially more sway than he would have had with the board seats. The billionaire investor, famous for clashing with boards of companies…

The board of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. is the latest to tussle with financial agitator Carl Icahn over its direction—and now the board and its activist shareholder are quibbling over who was first to stop talks about Icahn getting to designate some board members. Icahn, who has taken on Time…

The high-profile premium movie JV from Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate, now called Epix, is still optimistic on getting a distribution deal on cable or satellite by fall this year, despite worsening economic conditions. The JV has already announced that it will go ahead with an online/broadband launch…

Back when I started writing about cable programming, if a wannabe network couldn’t get distribution on cable, it tried satellite in the hopes that would put pressure on cable or at least give the network a way to move off paper and into some homes. If it couldn’t get satellite,…

The TV Guide saga continues ... Macrovision (NSDQ: MVSN) has done an about-face and found a very interesting new buyer for its TV Guide Network and TV Guide Online properties—Lionsgate Entertainment (LGE). The TV production firm and movie studio is slated to buy the properties from Macrovision for $255 million,…

So much has been written about the new premium movie channel that is supposed to be launched jointly by Viacom (NYSE: VIA) with MGM, Lionsgate and its own Paramount Pictures in the fall of 2009, including the fact that it may have run into some trouble on the distribution side,…

It was leaked weeks ago but the players involved in the new premium network wouldn’t confirm officially: Mark Greenberg is president and CEO of the new premium entertainment JV recently announced by Viacom (NYSE: VIA) with MGM, Lionsgate and its own Paramount Pictures. Greenberg had a long career at Showtime,…

Lionsgate Entertainment, without a digital executive for a while now (last was Adrian Sexton, who was VP of digital media and left in May 2006), has finally found it important enough to appoint someone, but didn’t go too far to find the person: it has appointed longtime CinemaNow CEO Curt…

One sign that a company is ultra serious about a new venture: when the CEO of a major media company does press calls on a Sunday afternoon. Viacom (NYSE: VIA) CEO Philippe Dauman was doing just that today, as he explained the surprising decision to band together with Lionsgate and…

Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns has a message for Apple: if you want new home video releases available on iTunes, make your prices more in line with other retailers.  Even though he expects that a deal between the major movie studios and Apple is imminent on movie downloads, Burns said…

Earlier this summer, Break.com, the online video site based in Beverly Hills, announced an undisclosed amount of investment from Lionsgate, the major independent film and TV studio….which Variety later reported around $21 million. The exact amount and more details were revealed in a 10-Q filed on Friday by Lionsgate: It…