MGM

Orion Television’s syndicated court television pair are cleared in 90% of the country, Including all top 50 U.S. television markets. They will debut on Sept. 18.

MGM will bolster its lineup with the acquisition of the producer of Series including The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Vanderpump Rules and Botched.

It adds Mina Patel as SVP, worldwide television distribution and Todd Parkin as SVP-GM of MGM’s domestic networks. In addition, Annie Khostegyan is promoted to SVP of domestic television distribution.

MGM says that it just closed its acquisition of Viacom and Lionsgate’s combined 80.9% interest in Epix — giving it full control over the premium network company — and raised its debt load to $2.1 billion after seeing stronger than expected interest in an offering to help finance the deals.

MGM is about to become the sole owner of Epix with a deal to buy the stakes held by Viacom’s Paramount and Lionsgate that values the joint venture at $1.28 billion.MGM agreed to pay $1.03 billion for Viacom’s 49.8% interest and Lionsgate’s 31.2% of the premium network business. The partners expect the deal to close this month, following approval by antitrust officials.

Sinclair Television Group and MGM’s Comet TV sci-fi and horror broadcast network is now available on televisions nationwide via new apps for Apple TV and Roku. The free, ad-supported Comet TV — stocked with more than 1,500 hours of MGM programming — launched as a digital multicast network in late 2015, and is currently available in over 100 broadcast markets and online at CometTV.com.

MGM Holdings is in talks to acquire the 81% of Epix it does not already own from two of its partners in the premium U.S. channel, Viacom and Lionsgate, people familiar with the matter say. The deal would give MGM, a privately held U.S. movie studio best known for its classic film library, control of Epix and would be a boon to its TV business, as it seeks to build a stronger platform to distribute its content.

Charge! will have access to more than 2,300 hours of MGM TV content and more than 2,000 movie titles. It is slotted to launch later in the first quarter.

The two are selling for fall a live, half-hour show based on trending social media stories. The show is designed to exploit research that says that two-thirds of daytime TV viewers are also interacting with social media.

Light TV, a new, 24-hour faith and family entertainment network designed to tap into MGM’s library of titles, is being launched next month by Roma Downey, Mark Burnett and MGM in partnership with a number of Fox stations and affiliates.

In the universe known as multicast channels or diginets, Sinclair and MGM’s sci-fi focused Comet TV has gone from new player to leading player in its first year of existence.

Comet TV, launched a year ago by Sinclair Broadcast Group and MGM, is quickly becoming one of the most popular digital broadcast networks. Key to its success is a fan-driven community that keep the conversation about the sci-fi network going on social media. 

The company said contractual obligations prevent it from making public any unaired, archived material from The Apprentice, which MGM acquired last December when it purchased Mark Burnett Productions.

Pressure continues to mount on Mark Burnett to release potentially embarrassing outtakes of Donald Trump from his 11 years as the star of NBC’s The Apprentice. On Tuesday, attorney Gloria Allred and representatives from several women’s advocacy groups tried to deliver an open letter to Burnett at MGM’s offices in Beverly Hills, but security guards wouldn’t let them in the building.

MGM and its partner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, looked to the stars for the inspiration for its latest multicast network, Comet. Central to the channel’s sci-fi programming is the Stargate franchise comprising three live-action series, one animated series and three Stargate movies. Comet’s execs are pleased that the diginet is “skewing younger than most of these other [classic TV] channels.”

While the spectrum auction and repack could raise challenges, most multicast network players say they’re bullish on the business, especially with the likely adoption of ATSC 3.0. Diginets keep adding affiliates and expanding coverage and the top ones have begun attracting general market advertising. This is Part 1 of a four-part special report on multicasting. Parts 2 and 3 also appear today. Part 4, running Thursday morning, will focus on the technology of compression and channel sharing. You can read the other stories here.

The new show brings together sets of rival entrepreneurs who competitively pitch their ideas head to head in front of a studio audience. The audience will then vote on which entrepreneur will receive funding for their idea.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is starting a new science fiction network along with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the end of the month. Comet, will air MGM TV programming including The Outer Limits, Dead Like Me and several iterations of the Stargate franchise. It will also have movies from the MGM vault as well, including Moonraker and The Terminator.

The still-unnamed channel is so far cleared on stations reaching 30% of television homes with more expected to be announced.

The new multicast network from MGM and Titan Broadcast Management will include TV and movie content from the MGM library plus news, including three hours of content from Huffington Post, stand-up comedy specials, games and sports.

The MGM syndicated video clip strip’s Monday-Friday clearance is now 65%, which will increase to 85% this fall with the Fox deal.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is kicking off a $75 million stock repurchase program in order to guard against any hostile or unsolicited takeover attempts, the studio said today. The company said it was not making the move because it feared that any efforts were underway to purchase its assets. It also said the repurchase program could increase in size if needed.

Orion TV Productions’ new syndicated entry featuring DNA test results is set to premiere on Sept 23.

Creator David Armour says the MGM conflict-resolution strip with Lauren Lake plans to “bring something … interesting but with a truly positive resolution.” It’s been cleared so far in 75% of the U.S. for a fall 2013 launch.

Legendary film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is exploring a joint venture with another studio in addition to a possible initial public stock offering, according to sources. MGM filed a draft registration statement on Tuesday for an IPO, just 18 months after emerging from bankruptcy protection.

Gunning for content-rich rivals like Netflix, Amazon just reached a major licensing deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Among hundreds of other classic films and TV shows dating back to the ’80s, Amazon can now lure potential video-on-demand subscribers with The Terminator, Rain Man and The Silence of the Lambs.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Google is adding 600 movies from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to the titles it has available for rent on YouTube and also Google Play, its digital content store for […]

Officially ending its bankruptcy, the new management at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has closed a $500 million revolving credit facility that will be used to retire debt and to develop the film and TV businesses.

He joins from Steve Stark Productions, where he was president and executive producer. He led the company to an overall deal with NBC/Universal Television.

A month after she was tapped by Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum to run MGM’s TV division post-bankruptcy, Roma Khanna has built up her team with four appointments.

Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum have made a major move in the executive rebuilding of MGM’s TV division post-bankruptcy, hiring former top NBC Universal international TV executive  Roma Khanna to run it.