Berlin children's producer TV Loonland has bought a 65% stake in Seoul distribution firm Saerom Entertainment. Saerom is the third-largest video and DVD distributor in Korea and controls a leading Internet film portal, which it has been leveraging as a new means of distribution. TV Loonland will pay US$9.5 million for its share of the company, which foresees sales of $14 million and profits of $2 million for the year 2000. The move is yet another step in TV Loonland's global expansion, giving the company a strong distribution and Internet foothold in Asia.

Shockwave.com and AtomFilms announced they have signed a definitive merger agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, shockwave.com will acquire AtomFilms in a stock-for-stock deal giving Shockwave shareholders 70% of the combined company. In addition, Macromedia, parent of shockwave.com, will now own less than 50% of the new firm. The combined company will announce its new name at the closing of the deal.

Creative Planet Inc., a business-to-business solutions firm for the film and TV production industries and parent company of Animation World Network, laid off 72 employees, or 20% of the work staff, on Wednesday, December 13, 2000. The move comes on the heels of the company securing US$30 million in financing from United News & Media PLC. "These reductions are unfortunate," said Creative Planet chairman and CEO Alan DeBevoise. "But we have acquired a number of companies, and as you're scaling and integrating and market conditions change, we have had to streamline the organization.

WireBreak Entertainment has restructured its business model to fight going under. As a result, the company has laid off most of its staff except for a few key executives. Started in October 1988, the company quickly moved from being a Web destination site to an online producer and syndicator. Now the firm is moving away from Web content and focusing on interactive television, television and film. Current projects will be outsourced to other production houses.

The Munich state prosecutor, Manfred Wick, has begun a probe into allegations that EM.TV, the German family production and merchandising company, has participated in insider trading and other stock market violations. The investigation will focus on EM.TV CEO Thomas Haffa and his brother, Florian, who recently resigned from company's board. This move comes on the heels of investors filing suit last week against the company after EM.TV cut its year-end profit forecast by 90%.

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Munich officials are looking into several lawsuits that have been brought against kid media and merchandising company EM.TV. One case was filed by the German shareholders association DSW, which claims that EM.TV executives repeatedly held back information about their financial problems. EM.TV's financial concerns started when they first announced the cutting of revenues due to accounting errors in the acquisition of the Jim Henson Co. and Formula One racing.

The Turkish government has taken the next step in its fight against the cartoon POKEMON. Broadcasting officials ordered the privately owned ATV network to shut down for a day as punishment for airing an episode of POKEMON. The move came under a law that bars "broadcasting that could affect children's and teenagers' physical, emotional and ethical development negatively." This action comes on the heels of the Turkish government's call to ban the series after two children hurt themselves imitating POKEMON characters [AWN 11/29/00].

Wild Brain has picked AniManagement to represent the animation house in the U.S. The agency will work in Wild Brain's interest to find syndication deals for the company's film, television and Internet content. AniManagement's Aaron Berger and Rebecca Poole will handle Wild Brain's film and TV productions with James Strader handling the Internet content. Poole will also work with Wild Brain to increase their production slate.

DreamWorks and Lucasfilm have secured places on Forbes 500 Private Companies list for 2000. Each year Forbes magazine ranks the top privately held companies in the U.S. based on revenue and number of employees. DreamWorks placed #174 and Lucasfilm was #219. If the companies on the list do not provide revenue data to the magazine they arrive at estimates based on analysts, trade organizations and competitor recommendations. For the year 2000, Forbes estimated that DreamWorks made approximately US$118 million in profits and $1.2 billion in revenue.