Today, popular movie site Flixster announced that it is buying RottenTomatoes.com from IGN Entertainment for an undisclosed amount. Flixster is a movie rating site that lets you share films you like with friends and also find out what movies they like. Rotten Tomatoes is a similar beast, although it focuses more(…)

Yahoo Media Group, a division of the Netco racked by exec turnover since the late 2006 exit of topper Lloyd Braun, has ramped up its original programming under CEO Carol Bartz.

Yahoo has launched a series of programs during the past six months — OMG’s “The 411″ and “This Week in Music” debuted late last month — and has many more in development.

Website is also beefing up its editorial content, hiring a number of displaced journos much as AOL has in recent months.(…)

A BBC online laffer will transfer to one of the pubcaster’s main TV channels for the first time.

Youth-focused “Fresh,” about the escapades of a group of college freshmen, began life as five-minute webisodes produced by the BBC’s teen website Switch. Beginning in the fall, seven 30-minute episodes will air on BBC2′s teen-branded(…)

News Corp. fired Friedman April 4. for for reviewing a leaked copy of Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  According to Variety Roger Friedman is suing his old bosses for more than $5 million seeking damages for libel and legal fees in a suit that names Fox as well as News Corp. and its(…)

ABC programs debuted on Hulu Monday now that the Walt Disney Co. has completed its deal to become an equity partner in the Internet vid service along with News Corp., NBC Universal and Providence Equity Partners.The Alphabet’s top-rated “Grey’s Anatomy” was the first show to bow and will be followed by other(…)

The Regional Court of Hamburg has ruled in favor of German collecting society GEMA, which had requested that the court issue an order prohibiting file-hosting service rapidshare.com from making around 5,000 music tracks available on the Internet.

The court fined Rapidshare €24 million ($33.5 million).

“The judgment states that the hosting service itself is(…)

YouTube, which is owned by Google, has signed a content deal with several Hollywood movie studios, Reuters reports. Among the studios that will be offering free full-length films and TV shows on YouTube are Sony Pictures, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz, and the BBC, according to the AP. Google, which bought YouTube for(…)

Online video viewing continues to grow apace in the U.S. In all, 130 million unique users watched 9.7 billion streams, with the number of streams up nearly 39% from March 2008 and up nearly 9% from February’s benchmark.

The average length of time that viewers spend watching online video is also growing –(…)