Barry Willis

A payout of as much as $275 million to Jeffery Katzenberg could be in the offing for <A HREF="http://www.disney.com/">Walt Disney Company</A>, which agreed on July 6 to settle a five-year-old breach-of-contract suit brought by the former studio executive. One of Hollywood's longest-running and most bitter legal disputes was settled over the July 4 weekend at the Malibu estate of music mogul and DreamWorks partner David Geffen, who hammered out a deal with Stanley Gold, a Disney Company director and friend of Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Geffen is Katzenberg's partner in DreamWorks SKG, the film, music, and video company they formed with Steven Spielberg.

Bad news always comes in threes, goes the old adage. This folk wisdom proved true in Hollywood in late June as three major film studios announced cutbacks, layoffs, reorganizations---and the possible cancellation of a massive studio-building project.

Divx is gone. <A HREF="http://www.divx.com/">Digital Video Express</A>, the <A HREF="http://www.circuitcity.com/">Circuit City</A> subsidiary that launched the pay-per-view DVD format less than a year ago, announced on June 16 that it would cease operations. Blaming lack of support from film studios and retailers, Circuit City decided to bow out early rather than continue to fight a losing battle. "We regret that a lack of support from studios and other retailers will prohibit consumers from receiving the exceptional benefits of the Divx system," says W. Alan McCollough, president and chief operating officer of Circuit City Stores, Inc. A refund program for Divx buyers is underway, company officials stated.

News Corporation's <A HREF="http://www.fox.com/">Fox Network</A> and the <A HREF="http://www.nab.org/">National Association of Broadcasters</A> have gone their separate ways. Fox made the announcement on June 8 in protest over the Association's refusal to lobby against legal limits on the number of television stations one company can own. The limit is now defined by Federal law as a total number of stations that reach no more than 35% of the more than 100 million homes in the US. Three weeks earlier, <A HREF="http://www.nbc.com/">NBC</A>, a unit of General Electric, had threatened similar action over the NAB's refusal to change its policy.