Viacom-owned Showtime Networks Inc. (SNI) has laid off 70 workers, roughly 10% of its staff, on May 5, 2003, primarily in the areas of affiliate relations, marketing and creative services. This follows on the heels of rival HBO eliminating 20 jobs the previous week.

S4 Studios a traditional/3D animation design and content creation studio founded in 1999 in the San Fernando Valley, has opened its new studio in the heart of Hollywood. The new facility, located at 1529 N. Cahuenga Boulevard, will allow the growing studio greater access to its core businesses of trailers, network graphics and TV commercials while continuing to develop original content for motion pictures, television, direct to video and online.

DIC Entertainment has sued Speed Racer Enterprises to enforce DIC’s television, merchandise and other ancillary rights to the animated series SPEED RACER, which is airing weekly on the Nickelodeon network. DIC is seeking damages of $5 million plus punitive damages and injunctive relief for fraud, breach of contract, injunctive relief, conversion, slander of title and a number of other causes of action in case filed with Los Angeles Super Court.

Broadcast design industry leaders Paul Newman, Jim Moran and Gary Bonilla have formed CO-OP, a new advertising and design company in New York City that operates as the strategic core of a network of partners with a full range of complimentary creative companies. CO-OP offers its clients brand strategy and brand development through advertising, vertical marketing, business to business communication, direct marketing, interactive, brand design and identity and broadcast design.

A developer wants to raze the Hanna-Barbera Studios buildings that animation legends William Hanna and Joseph Barbera erected in 1963 at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. near Universal City, to build shops and apartments. HB preservationists are scrambling to mount a campaign to save what they call is a historic and architecturally significant landmark, while some residents of that neighborhood fear the project would worsen traffic in the Cahuenga Pass.

;;<??orial started up April 21, 2003 in Santa Monica, California to offer creative editorial to the television advertising community. Company co-founders are Michael Raimondi, Werner Mayes and Ron Moler, with Raimondi also acting as executive producer and Megan Dahlman as producer. Mayes and Raimondi worked together for several years at Santa Monica-based editorial facility Harley's House.

Haim Saban's plan to buy KirchMedia has hit a snag because KirchMedia creditor banks are refusing to accept some terms of the deal, which they claim are different than what Saban originally proposed. "The most recently presented business plan (11 April) has substantial disadvantages for the banks' position in comparison with the originally presented business plan," credit bank, cooperative DZ Bank said in a two-page letter, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Manex Entertainment, Inc. reported revenues of approximately $1,750,000 with an operating profit of $400,000 in its preliminary unaudited results for the three-month period ended March 31, 2003. Manex Entertainment has been best known in the past for providing Oscar-winning visual effects for big-budget feature films such as THE MATRIX, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. It has west coast facilities in Los Angeles and Hayward, California and is proposing to build east coast facilities in Trenton, New Jersey.

Viacom has reached an agreement with AOL Time Warner to buy AOL's 50% interest in Comedy Central, the only all-comedy network in the U.S., for a total of $1.225 billion. The transaction is expected in the second quarter of 2003, whereby Comedy Central will be wholly owned by Viacom and join MTV Network's line-up of basic cable channels. Viacom is well positioned to do so, having just announced a 26% increase in net earnings in the first quarter of 2003. Viacom posted net income of $443M, or 25 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.11 billion in 2002, or 63 cents a share.

Roger Chouinard, owner and co-founder of Duck Soup Studios in Los Angeles, has renamed his studio DUCK to go with a new image and logo, as well as new developments in the creative and technical direction of the studio.