Beyond selling up to Malaysia

One of Australia's biggest production houses and distributors, Beyond International will sell its shares to interests in Malaysia.

It has been offered $74.6m from equity firm Navis Capital Partners, and will be voted on by shareholders in November. The bid outdoes a previous offer of $68.7m from Mariner Financial.

Beyond has a long history in Australian production when it started with Beyond 2000 in 1984. Recent productions have included What's Good For You, Stingers and Mythbusters overseas.

Managing Director Mikael Borglund will remain in his position.

Source: C21 Read more...

Media Watch in freefall?

Changes are afoot for Media Watch following the exit of Exec Producer Tim Palmer across to Lateline. Now, host Monica Attard has indicated she will finish up with the ABC show at the end of the year.

"Two years is long enough. It's an extremely taxing program to make, Media Watch, and I have also been presenting Sunday Profile (on ABC radio) all year too," she told The Age.

The newswatch programme has come under regular scrutiny of The Australian, but Palmer told Crikey, “every time The Australian had a closely observed comment about Media Watch without exception it followed making a closely observed comment about The Australian.” A case of tit for tat?

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott also singled out the show for a review of the “format and content to ensure there is more opportunity for debate and discussion around contentious and important issues.”

Sources (in case Media Watch wants to take issue with our referencing!): The Age, The Australian, Crikey
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Lucas Neill joins Foxtel

Foxtel has signed Socceroos star Lucas Neill as its third marketing ambassador.

He will join Hugh Jackman and Ian Thorpe in fronting advertising campaigns for the subscription TV giant.

Brian Walsh said, “Lucas is one of the most popular sporting heroes this country has produced. He has endeared himself to sports-loving audiences around the world with his commitment and passion to the world game."

Press Release:

FOXTEL today announced it has signed an exclusive contract with Australian Socceroo Lucas Neill.

Neill, part of Australia’s national team for more than a decade, will join FOXTEL personalities, including Hugh Jackman and Ian Thorpe, to spearhead the leading subscription television provider’s marketing and advertising campaigns.

This exciting two-year exclusive arrangement will also see Neill involved in a range of programming and promotional concepts based around his extensive and successful football career.

FOXTEL’s Executive Director of Television and Marketing Brian Walsh said: “Lucas is one of the most popular sporting heroes this country has produced. He has endeared himself to sports-loving audiences around the world with his commitment and passion to the world game.

“FOXTEL is the home of Football in Australia and as the code continues to flourish it is great to have someone of Lucas’ calibre as part of the FOXTEL family.”

Last week Neill captained Australia in the friendly match against Argentina. He also plays in the English Premier League for West Ham and, in 2006, he was part of the historic Aussie team that reached the Round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup.

Neill said: “It’s rewarding to know that I’m partly responsible, along with everyone else, for making Australia known around the world as a football power and putting the national team on the map. Obviously our World Cup efforts contributed to that.”

On being chosen as one of the faces of FOXTEL, he said: “It’s a real honour, FOXTEL is a very respected company and has some great packages, giving viewers the opportunity to see football pretty much non-stop with coverage of the English Premier League, which I play in, and of course the A-League, the Socceroos and even the Asian Champions League.”

Neill’s manager, David Flaskas of Grand Slam International, said: “We’re delighted that FOXTEL has given Lucas, like Ian (Thorpe), the platform to explore a wide variety of opportunities in television.

“Separate to that, FOXTEL really is the home of Football now and we believe FOXTEL and Lucas Neill together make for a great relationship to promote the game in this country.” Read more...

Airdate: RPA: Where Are They Now?

A few more schedule announcements from Nine:

A new series of RPA: Where Are They Now will air from 9:30pm Thursday October 4 in NSW and QLD. Victoria will have a 2 hr finale of Sea Patrol series. It follows no episode next week due to an extended Footy Show Grand Final edition.

Nine has performed well with RPA, turning it into one hour episodes and developing the spin-off series.

Amazing Medical Stories will begin a new series at 10:30pm the same night.

Nine will also have the 2004 special To Hell and Back, about "sex slave" Tanjas Darke at 9:30pm Tuesday Oct 2. Darke suffered at the hands of her father for 23 years, mostly in Vanuatu, before escaping him in New Zealand.

The disturbing and inspirational true story of Tanjas Darke. After being kept as a sex slave by her father of 23 years, Tanjas reclaimed her life and took her abusive, manipulative and controlling father to court after she managed to escape her imprisonment. Now Tanjas, a remarkably courageous and articulate 41 year-old, tells her story in harrowing and intimate detail in the hope she can help others. Read more...

Elisabeth vs Barry

First it was Rosie, now The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck has a new sworn enemy - Barry Manilow.

The evergreen singer claims he has withdrawn from a planned appearance on the chat show because he has asked to be interviewed by anyone other than Elisabeth.



He has appeared previously on the show but, "Unfortunately, the show was not willing to accommodate this simple request so I bowed out," he says.

Hasselbeck infuriated O'Donnell with her pro-Republican stance (amongst other conservative statements). Manilow is a staunch supporter of the Democrats. He has called the former Survivor contestant, "dangerous and offensive."

But The View tells a different story, saying they cancelled Manilow for his "completely disrespectful" demands.

Source: Yahoo. Read more...