LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" grossed a cool $13.8 million in North American theaters on Wednesday, marking Hollywood's biggest mid-week opening for an animated film. The previous record Wednesday opening in the United States and Canada for a cartoon feature was "Shrek 2," which sold $11.8 million its first day in May 2004, according to the film tracking service Hollywood.com Box-Office. The third installment of "Ice Age," the hit film franchise starring a computer-animated cast of prehistoric critters, also bested the blockbuster ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dealmaking in Hollywood could get hot and heavy in coming months as movie studios explore ways to fight tumbling DVD sales and distribute entertainment in new formats. Even as the recession squeezes financing from Wall Street banks and funds, the deal chatter has picked up because studios have already cut expenses and are looking for new growth opportunities for their movies, TV series and other content. Viacom Inc's Paramount Studios is in early talks with several studios, including News Corp's Fox and Sony Corp's ...

SO MANY CHANNELS, SO FEW EYEBALLS

For years local broadcast stations looked forward to digital TV as a potential business panacea. The technology would allow them to create so-called subchannels alongside their existing ones that would beam niche programming--from local weather to high school football games--over the air to viewers' sets, theoretically attracting more advertising and helping the local guys compete with cable.
After several false starts, the analog era ended and digital television went live on June 12. And those dreamed-of subchannels? Most of the country's 1,700 ...