BRIEFS

Cable World, Oct 14, 2002

YUEN OUT AT GEMSTAR

Gemstar-TV Guide International co-president and COO Jeff Shell will take over the CEO position from Henry Yuen, who moves to an international business and technology development role. News Corp. EVP of finance Paul Haggerty also replaces Gemstar CFO Elsie Leung on an interim basis. Yuen will receive about $22 million and Leung about $7 million to terminate their current contracts.

KIDS PICK CLIPS ON NICK'S 'U PICK LIVE'

Nickelodeon has created a younger version of sister network MTV's Total Request Live - U Pick Live, which premieres today. Young viewers can pick which cartoons will be shown during the 5 p.m. live telecast from Times Square. Preceding U Pick Live each day will be the new season of Slime Time Live, which will air from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

'SPORTSCENTER' BULKS UP TO 90 MINUTES

ESPN said it will expand SportsCenter to 90 minutes on Sundays beginning Oct. 15. Monday-through-Saturday editions of SportsCenter will be expanded to 90 minutes during the Major League Baseball off-season.

LIBERTY FOILED AGAIN IN GERMAN BID

For the second time, Liberty Media struck out in an attempt to buy Deutsche Telekom's cable operations last week. DT serves 6 million German customers. Liberty, which had teamed with Apollo Partners and Blackstone Group, found out it hadn't make the cut from reading the press clips, according to company spokesman Mike Erickson. In August, Liberty agreed to buy Dutch cable company Casema from France Telecom for $731 million, and it still has options in Europe. Callahan Associates, which serves about 8 million customers, has said it wants to strike partnerships with other cable players.