A new digital content deal between NBCUniversal and Netflix means the end of fresh episodes of "Saturday Night Live" on the service.

For the last few years, episodes of "SNL" have been available for Netflix subscribers to stream online the day after they air, giving them access to topical laughs without subscribing to cable or even setting up an antenna.

Like other television and film companies that have instituted delays on new content to Netflix, however, NBC is now insisting that Netflix is for older content only. Starz, for instance, instituted a 90-day delay for its new programs on Netflix in March.

Under the new agreement, which will last for at least two years, all NBC-produced television shows on Netflix will be at least one season old. The deal also includes some programs that weren't previously available on Netflix, such as "Parenthood" and "The Event" as well as some classic programs like "Leave it to Beaver." It also encompasses Universal movies such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" that have finished their run on pay channel HBO.

The agreement is non-exclusive, meaning NBC U can license its content to other online subscription video services such as Amazon.com.

It comes a day after Netflix announced it is substantially raising prices for consumers who watch streaming content and get DVDs through the mail.

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-- Ben Fritz

Photo: Kristin Wiig and Seth Meyers on "Saturday Night Live." Credit: Dana Edelson / NBC.

News Corp. has backed off of its plan to buy BSkyB, the powerful British satellite broadcasting company in which it holds a minority stake. 

The decision comes in the wake of a phone hacking scandal that has already led the Rupert Murdoch-owned media giant to shut down its British tabloid News of the World. The paper was closed after accusations that it not only had hacked into the voicemails of celebrities and members of the Royal Family, but victims of crime and terrorism as well.

News Corp. had hoped to salvage its $12-billion purchase of the 60% of BSkyB it didn't already own, but the increased scrutiny on the company's operations and news gathering practices and the implications that this was more than a rogue reporter or editor made the purchase politically unfeasible.

"We believed that the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corp. would benefit both companies but it has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate," said News Corp. Deputy Chairman and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey.

Not only has News Corp.'s image suffered a black eye in the wake of the News of the World debacle, investors have been fleeing the company as well. On Tuesday, News Corp. announced plans to increase a stock buyback program to $5 billion to try to boost its tumbling share price.

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-- Joe Flint

Oprah Winfrey has decided that if you want to get the job done, you better do it yourself.

The former daytime talkshow queen has named herself chief executive and chief creative officer of OWN, the cable network she launched in partnership with Discovery Communications. The announcement was made early Wednesday morning.

The move comes just over two months after Christina Norman was forced out as CEO of OWN in a management shake-up. Norman, who exited only four months after the channel made its debut, was OWN's third head since its formation was announced in 2008.

“I am ready to dedicate my full creative energy and focus as the full-time CEO of OWN," Winfrey said in a statement.

Since Norman left, Peter Liguori, the chief operating officer of Discovery Communications and a former top executive at Fox Broadcasting, had been serving as interim CEO.

Also taking top positions at OWN are two of Winfrey's trusted lieutenants. Erik Logan and Sheri Salata, currently presidents of Harpo Studios, Winfrey's production company, will now serve as presidents of OWN.

“The announcement of Oprah, Erik and Sheri completes the plan for developing a strategic creative track and finding the right management team to execute on that plan going forward,” said Liguori.

Winfrey's channel, which went live in January, has struggled to build ratings despite hundreds of millions spent on programming and promotion. Winfrey recently has acknowledged that she was not as focused on OWN as she should have been because it was launched while her daytime talk show was wrapping up its final season.

-- Joe Flint

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Photo: Oprah Winfrey. Credit: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press.

After the coffee. Before wondering if I'll remember who won the All-Star game two days from now.

The Skinny: I always preferred Mary Ann to Ginger, but not Jan to Marsha. R.I.P. Sherwood Schwartz, who created two of the most successful comedy hits ever. In other news, Oprah Winfrey is taking the reins of her cable network, OWN, and Netflix is raising is prices big time.

Ouch! Netflix subscribers are about to get a punch in the wallet. The movie subscription service is upping its prices by as much as 60% a month. Gone is the $9.99 plan that allowed customers to watch an unlimited number of movies online and rent one DVD at a time. Now subscribers who want that package will have to pay $15.98 a month. Although this won't win Netflix any customer service awards, the Hollywood studios that sell their content to Netflix are smiling because they know this means Netflix knows the cost of content is going way up. Coverage from the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post.

If you want something done right. Oprah Winfrey has found the perfect CEO for her OWN cable network: Oprah Winfrey. That's right, after going through several presidents and/or chief executives, Winfrey has decided to take the title herself at OWN, the cable channel she launched in partnership with Discovery Communications. OWN, which launched Jan. 1, has struggled in the ratings and had been searching for a new head after former MTV chief Christina Norman was forced out. Winfrey's move will no doubt reassure Wall Street and advertisers about her commitment to the network. The announcement from Discovery and Winfrey came early Wednesday. More from the Wall Street Journal, which got the scoop.

Another day, another drama. As its stock price continues to suffer from the fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, News Corp. on Tuesday announced an upping of its stock buyback plan to $5 billion in an effort to stop the bleeding. In the meantime, British lawmakers want News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch to come clean about everything (for some reason the Jack Nicholson "you can't handle the truth" scene from "A Few Good Men" is running through my head), and lawmakers once cozy with the media giant are trying to distance themselves from the mess. The latest from the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter, which jumped on the "what will this mess do to Murdoch heir James Murdoch's ambitions of one day running the media giant" bandwagon. Reuters also has an interesting article on how News Corp. has actually collected refunds on its taxes from the U.S. government.

Is there a lawyer in the house? The Hollywood Reporter has come out with its list of the top 100 entertainment attorneys. In other words, THR legal reporter Matthew Belloni has just published his source list! We kid our friend Matthew, who gets lots of juicy lawsuit scoops. I'd tell you who was on top of the list, but THR makes you click something like 300 different pages to get to it and I just don't care that much.

Can "Moneyball" round the bases? Variety takes a look at the challenges Sony will face in making its movie version of the bestselling book "Moneyball" into a hit. The movie has had lots of behind-the-scenes drama almost from the moment the studio landed rights to Michael Lewis' book about how the Oakland A's built a hot team without blowing through billions of dollars.

Will Carmageddon slow Harry Potter? The Wrap looks at what this weekend's closure of a big chunk of the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles could mean for box office. I know I'm staying home!

Inside the Los Angeles Times: Electronic Arts is buying PopCap Games, the maker of Bejewled, in a deal valued at $1.3 billion. An appreciation of "Brady Bunch" and "Gilligan's Island" creator Sherwood Schwartz, who died at the age of 94.

-- Joe Flint

Follow me on Twitter. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will keep me from my appointed tweets. Twitter.com/JBFlint

Electronic Arts Inc. on Tuesday said it has agreed to purchase PopCap Games, the maker of Bejeweled, in a deal valued at as much as $1.35 billion.

The transaction calls for EA to pay $650 million in cash, plus $100 million in EA stock. In addition, EA agreed to pay out as much as $550 million in cash should PopCap meet certain financial milestones over the next three years. EA also said it would spend $50 million in stock over four years to retain PopCap's 450 employees.

If the tally reaches $1.35 billion, PopCap would be the most EA has ever paid for an acquisition. Its purchase of BioWare in 2007 for $620 million, plus $205 million in stock, represented a larger up-front investment of more than $825 million. But that deal did not contain additional cash incentives for BioWare as PopCap's does.

Founded in 2000, PopCap is perhaps most famous for its first breakout title, Bejeweled. The puzzle game, and its subsequent variants, have sold more than 50 million units in the past 11 years.

But the Seattle developer has been more than just a one-hit wonder, cranking out a series of highly polished titles over the years that have gained it the respect of serious as well as casual players. Its Plants vs. Zombies, for example, won the 2009 Puzzle Game of the Year award from PC Gamer. Another game, Peggle, was named one of the Top 10 Video Games of 2007 by Joystiq, a site that caters to hard core gamers.

For EA, the deal is just one in a series of strategic acquisitions designed to bolster the company's presence in the growing market for mobile and social games. 

Most recently, EA in May purchased Firemint, an Australian developer of smart phone games such as Flight Control and Real Racing. In October, it snapped up Chillingo, the publisher (though not the developer of) Angry Birds, one of the most successful games ever for Apple's iPhones and iPads. And in November 2009, EA paid $275 million in cash for Playfish, a developer of social games on Facebook.

-- Alex Pham

Photo: A screen shot of Peggle. Credit: PopCap.

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Netflix consumers who like to receive both a DVD and watch movies online through the service are about to pay 60% more a month in subscription fees.

In a reflection of the more challenging economics, the company faces to acquire digital content and ship DVDs, Netflix announced Tuesday that it will no longer offer combined DVD and streaming plans. Instead, the company's more than 22.8 million U.S. consumers will have to pay separately for each service.

Unlimited streaming will cost $7.99 per month, as will taking out one DVD at a time. The combined cost is $15.98 per month, a huge price increase for those who currently pay $9.99 for a combined streaming-plus-one-DVD plan.

In a blog post, the company positioned the price increase as a way to bolster its DVD business, which executives had previously deemphasized.

"Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs," the corporate blog post said. "Creating an unlimited DVDs by mail plan (no streaming) at our lowest price ever, $7.99, does make sense and will ensure a long life for our DVDs by mail offering."

However, the higher prices could also encourage some users to abandon DVDs and utilize only streaming. In either case, Netflix could end up with more money to pay for the rising costs of content for its digital service.

If some consumers switch to DVD-only plans, that may also help Netflix access more digital content. For example, it recently lost films from Sony Pictures that it acquired from Starz because its subscriber total exceeded a cap established by the studio.

The price changes are effective immediately for new subscribers but take effect in September for preexisting ones.

Consumers who want two DVDs out at a time will pay $4 more for the additional disc. There are also surcharges for access to Blu-ray discs.

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-- Ben Fritz

Photo: Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings at a California distribution center. Credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For the Times

 
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

Woody Allen, the Brooklyn-born director who defined New York for filmgoers with such hits as “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Annie Hall,” is once again choosing Europe over Manhattan as the stage for his next movie.

Following up films shot in London, Barcelona and Paris --  where Allen set the recently released "Midnight in Paris," his most successful movie in years --  the idiosyncratic filmmaker is now focusing his lens on Rome.

On Monday, Allen began filming his next release, “Bop Decameron,” in the Italian capital, an event celebrated by the city's mayor, Gianni Alemanno.

“Allen deliberately set out to immerse himself in Roman life, and he has been going around to get a feel of the real, genuine Rome," said Alemanno, who invited Allen to his office last week and presented him with a small statue of a she-wolf, the symbol of Rome. “We are collaborating with him in every possible way to give him all the help we can.”

The $25-million movie, which has yet to find a distributor but is scheduled for release next year, is loosely based on a collection of 100 medieval tales written by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio in the 14th century. It will be comprised of four vignettes set in contemporary Rome, with the latter two segments expected to be in Italian. The international cast includes several Italian actors led by Roberto Benigni, as well as Penélope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin and Allen himself.

The director suffered a run of commercial and critical failures at the box office before turning his sights across the Atlantic a decade ago. “Match Point,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and this year’s “Midnight in Paris” have all garnered critical praise and financial success, with "Midnight" proving to be the filmmaker’s biggest box office hit in 25 years, garnering nearly $70 million in ticket sales so far.

“Every time has been like making declarations of love for certain places and projecting onto the screen my feelings for the places which have counted most in my life,” Allen said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in March. “I hope to do the same with Rome.”

Allen was unavailable for comment, his publicist said, but in previous interviews he has cited high production costs in New York a key reason for his shift to Europe.

According to Allen’s producers on “Bop Decameron,” the Roman picture is taking advantage of Italy’s 25% film tax credit, which took effect in 2009 and was renewed for three years last February after a temporary freeze.  The project is being financed by Rome-based Medusa Film and produced by Allen’s longtime partners Letty Aronson (Allen's younger sister) and Stephen Tenenbaum.

Film officials in Rome are hoping Allen will make the city, famously depicted in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” a character in the film during the two-month shoot.

“Allen is a director who has, perhaps more than others, created a particular relationship of exchange with the cities he uses for his films,” said Cristina Priarone, general manager of the Rome Lazio Film Commission. “The city of Rome will offer Woody Allen the light, the colors and the faces that have always been its cinematographic trademark, offering the director another piece in his personal European mosaic.”

For the record, 2:35 p.m. July 12: A previous version of this post referred to Cristina Priarone as Christina Priarone and Gianni Alemanno as Gianni Alemmano.

Photo:  Spanish actress Penélope Cruz (R) listens to director Woody Allen in Piazza Augusto Imperatore in central Rome on June 11, 2011 on the first day of the shooting of his movie "Bop Decameron."  Credit: EPA / Massimo Percossi

-- Dima Alzayat

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With its stock price being hammered by investors in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closing of its News of the World tabloid, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. approved a stock repurchase program totaling $5 billion.

The move comes after four days of stock declines and a loss of more than $7 billion in market value to News Corp., a global media conglomerate with annual revenues of close to $33 billion. News Corp. stock closed at $16.10 Monday, a six-month low. In trading early Tuesday, the stock was up slightly to $16.41.

Besides the black eye News Corp.'s reputation has taken for allegations of massive phone hacking by the News of the World into the voice mails of not only celebrities and the royal family, but victims of crime as well, the debacle has jeopardized the company's plans to acquire control of British satellite broadcasting giant BSkyB.

The deal to buy the 60% of BSkyB that it doesn't already own for more than $12 billion has come under increasing scrutiny in the last few weeks after seeming poised for approval by British regulators. On Monday, News Corp. made moves that would invite more regulatory scrutiny of its ambitions to acquire all of BSkyB in the hopes of building goodwill with regulators.

The stock buyback actually increases an existing program that still had $1.8 billion remaining under the current plan.

While News Corp. continues to try to contain the fire engulfing its British operations, the mess has given its critics new ammunition to attack the company in the U.S. and to demand that regulators and lawmakers investigate the media giant.

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-- Joe Flint

Photo: Rupert Murdoch. Credit: Oli Scarff /Getty Images

After the coffee. Before the next twist in the News of the World scandal.

The Skinny: This tabloid scandal would be great for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. if it wasn't about one of his tabloids. The story continues to take more twists and turns. Elsewhere, Michael Eisner's online studio, Vuguru, has some old-media ideas for new media.

The story that won't die. News Corp.'s phone-hacking drama is the story that won't go away. With its deal to take control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB in jeopardy because of the scandal that led to the demise of its News of the World tabloid, News Corp. altered its strategy, delaying the purchase and inviting further regulatory scrutiny of the proposal. The move is seen as a political attempt to appease British regulators. Meanwhile, News Corp.'s stock continues to be punished by investors, with one group filing a suit complaining that the board of Rupert Murdoch's company is ineffectual. Early Tuesday morning, News Corp. announced a $5-billion stock repurchase plan. In the U.S., complaints are growing louder that the government needs to start looking at whether News Corp. has the character to maintain its TV licenses, although the odds are very long that the headaches Murdoch's company is enduring in Britain will reach across the Atlantic. The latest coverage from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reuters and Bloomberg.

NBC adds more power to executive lineup. NBC will tap Jennifer Nicholson Salke, a top programming executive at 20th Century Fox Television, to be its new president of entertainment, according to Deadline Hollywood. The move has been expected for several months, even though Salke still had some time left on her deal with Fox. Wonder what sort of deal the studio cut with NBC to let her out of her contract early. Perhaps two pilot commitments to be named later?

Save this show! TV critics are starting to rally around TNT's "Men of a Certain Age," the drama about three old friends confronting life after 40. The show, which can be both funny and poignant at the same time, has struggled in the ratings despite lots of love from critics. TNT has not decided its fate yet, but with plenty of other hits on the network, the hope among fans of "Men of a Certain Age" is that TNT will recognize there is also value in having a prestigious critical darling on its roster. Pleas from the critics at Hollywood Reporter and AOL TV. Full disclosure, I too am a huge fan of this show.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: A look at Michael Eisner's online studio, Vuguru, which is starting to take an old-media approach to new media. Reliance and Digital Domain are teaming up to open new studios in India and Britain.

-- Joe Flint

Follow me on Twitter. It just feels right. Twitter.com/JBFlint

Hollywood is becoming even more reliant on one of India's biggest media companies.

Reliance MediaWorks, a division of the conglomerate Reliance ADA Group, said Monday that it has partnered with the Venice-based visual effects house Digital Domain Productions to open studios in London and Mumbai, underscoring the increasingly global nature of California's visual effects industry.

The new studios will provide a variety of post-production services for movies, TV shows and commercials. The facilities will be owned by Reliance, which has existing post-production facilities in London and Mumbai, and will be managed by Digital Domain, which recently handled visual effects work for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and "Thor." Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal marks the latest entertainment industry investment by Reliance, which operates a chain of Indian theaters in the U.S. called Big Cinemas and an image processing center in Burbank, Lowry Digital, a film restoration business it acquired in 2008.

Reliance provided half the funding for Steven Spielberg's newly independent DreamWorks Studios after it split from parent Paramount Pictures and has business partnerships with production companies run by such high-profile industry figures as Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and partners Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. In June, former Universal Pictures co-Chairman David Linde announced that his new independent film finance and production company would be backed by Reliance Entertainment.

The partnership will give Digital Domain, founded in 1993 by James Cameron and other investors, its first foray into India, where several other rivals such as Technicolor and Rhythm & Hues already have operations to take advantage of substantially lower labor costs there.  The U.K., which has a strong film tax credit, has lured a number of big movies in recent years and become a major hub for visual effects. Such competition has squeezed small to midsize California visual effects companies, several of which have gone out of business in recent years.

"Filmmaking has become a global enterprise,'' said Cliff Plumer, chief executive of Digital Domain Productions. "A partnership with Reliance MediaWorks will allow our clients to realize the benefits of a digital production pipeline that makes efficient use of resources and talent located around the world."

Digital Domain also has a visual effects studio in Vancouver, Canada, and has been expanding its 3-D conversion business. Last year it acquired In-Three Inc. in Westlake Village and moved most workers to Florida. Its Florida parent company recently announced plans to raise up to up to $115 million in an intial public stock offering this summer.

-- Richard Verrier

Photo from "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." Credit: Paramount Pictures.

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