Redwood City, Calif. - Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS) announced on Thursday that it has signed a deal partnering its EA Sports brand with sports, entertainment and media company IMG. Under the deal, EA will market IMG's brand in a variety of new product categories, which could include sports camps, gaming lounges, publishing products and performance apparel. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

New York - CBS has announced plans to discontinue its CSTV brand, which will become known as the CBS College Sports Network as of next month. CBS Sports will also begin developing proprietary programming for the cable network. CBS acquired CSTV in January 2006; in addition to its cable TV network, the company operates over 200 official collegiate athletics websites, and streams audio and video of more than 10,000 college sporting events annually.

Los Angeles - NxTV, a provider of IP video-on-demand, IPTV and digital in-room entertainment to hotels, on Thursday announced a film and TV video-on-demand licensing agreement with NBC Universal. Los Angeles-based NxTV, which provides its services in hotels including Four Seasons, W Hotels, Mariott and Hyatt, said the deal includes Universal Pictures films in HD, and current TV content the day after it airs nationwide.

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft Game Studios has cancelled its planned massively multiplayer online game that was to be centered in the Marvel Comics universe, GamesIndustry.biz reports. "Marvel Universe Online" was in development for Xbox 360 and the PC. "When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of Marvel Universe Online, we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO," MGS head Shane Kim told MTV Multiplayer. "And if you really look at the data there's basically one [game] that's successful and everything else wouldn't meet our level or definition of commercial success."

San Francisco - Zynga Game Network, a publisher of casual games on social media sites like Facebook, Bebo and Friendster, announced on Thursday that it has opened its network to third-party game publishers and developers. Publishers including Sierra Online, Bigpoint and Come2Play have signed on with the company to deliver their titles on social networks via Zynga, which claims 1.3 million daily active users and 20 million registered users.

While the WGA strike is now a memory, the immediate future of the television industry remains anything but clear. Uncertainty about the viability of online platforms as strong business models, questions about content on mobile platforms, and the increasing penetration of entertainment alternatives like video games and social media are only some of the issues. At the 2008 Future of Television Conference in Los Angeles on March 24-25, an extraordinary group of speakers will gather to evaluate the state of the industry, and discuss what lies ahead.

Redmond, Wash. - Japanese games maker Nintendo's U.S. unit on Thursday asked the U.S. Trade Representative to encourage the governments of China, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay and Hong Kong to "take a more aggressive stance to combat piracy of Nintendo video games and systems."

New York - The New York Times has announced to editorial employees that it will cut 100 jobs from the company's newsroom this year, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

New York - Ratings and research firm Nielsen has acquired privately held, Utah-based Audience Analytics and its Audience Watch software, which Nielsen said will "significantly strengthen the company's ability to process, integrate, analyze and report large quantities of audience measurement data."

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it will hold a public hearing later this month on broadband network management practices, in the wake of an admission from Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) that it actively interferes with the peer-to-peer application usage of some of its customers. Responding to an FCC inquiry, which came after investigations by independent researchers and the Associated Press found that Comcast was throttling the BitTorrent uploads of some users, the company conceded in a filing with the FCC that it "manages the use of certain P2P protocols in a minimally intrusive way, and only when necessary, based on purely objective criteria."

Toronto - JumpTV, an online broadcaster of sports and international TV programming, announced on Thursday a strategic realignment towards its sports and Hispanic broadcast content, while looking to sell off its content delivery network and content based outside of Latin America.

San Francisco - Music-focused social network Imeem has acquired Snocap, the digital music licensing company founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning, according to TechCrunch, which added that the purchase price will likely not be disclosed.

Washington - The U.S. Justice Dept. has approved the buyout of radio giant Clear Channel Communications (NYSE: CCU) by private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, provided the company divest radio stations in Cincinnati, Houston, Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Santa Clara, Calif. - Macrovision (NASD: MVSN), a provider of anti-piracy and media delivery technologies, announced on Thursday that it has sold its software business unit to private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo (TCB) for around $200 million.

San Francisco - Seesmic, a start-up founded by French Web entrepreneur Loic Le Meur that is developing live video webcam communications technology, has raised $6 million in funding, led by Atomico.

Santa Monica, Calif. - News Corporation (NYSE: NWS) has created a business incubator, SlingShot Labs, and provided it with an initial $15 million in financing to help nurture start-up companies that could contribute to the company's Web properties, BusinessWeek reports.

Mill Valley, Calif. - Sparkplay Media, a developer of browser-based 3D multiplayer games, announced that it has raised $4.25 million in new financing, from Redpoint Ventures and Prism Ventureworks.