Englewood, Colo. - John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. (NASD: LINTA) on Monday announced that its board has authorized a plan to spin-off its Liberty Entertainment group, which holds a majority stake in DirecTV, GSN, Fun Technologies and Liberty Sports Holdings. "We believe a new asset-backed security will reduce the discount from fair value in our stock, thereby making it a more attractive currency, and will permit us to better pursue our strategic objectives," said Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei.

Los Angeles - The Championship Gaming Series (CGS), a professional video gamers' league backed by international broadcasters DirecTV, BSkyB and Star, announced in a note on its website that it has shut down.

Las Vegas - Martin Cooper and Donald Linder, developers of the world's first cell phone, were among 12 prominent industry leaders who have been inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced.

If you havent read, ESPN has come out and said that they will be aggressively bidding for the retransmission rights for the next available Olympics, which will be in 2016. Notice I didnt say TV rights. The battle for the Olympics rights will be in spreadsheet projections done by ESPN, NBC and probably DirecTV (my guess, not based on any info), that will have to take in to account what revenues can be generated on TV advertising (traditional and interactive), through cable/satellite subscription revenues, an ever increasing market size for mobile video and advertising, and of course audio/video and text advertising of all types.

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has closed public comments on a proposal from the Hollywood studios that would give content owners control over the recording capabilities of devices like digital video recorders, with service providers like AT&T (NYSE: T) and DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) weighing in in favor of the proposal, while groups including the Consumer Electronics Association, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opposed it.

New York - DirecTV (NYSE: DTV), the No. 1 satellite-TV provider in terms of subscribers, is testing its own version of an on-demand movies and television service that it plans to launch in the second quarter with some 3000 titles, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The new services will potentially put DirecTV’s satellite service in direct competition with on-demand services that so far only have been available on cable or newer phone-company TV services.

New York - DirecTV (NYSE: DTV), the nation's largest satellite TV service with over 16.6 million customers, announced on Thursday that it has partnered with audience measurement firm TNS Media Research, to develop what they say will be the largest U.S. national TV audience measurement panel ever created.

Tokyo - D&M Holdings, the Japan-based consumer electronics firm whose brands include Denon, Marantz and Boston Acoustics, announced on Thursday that it has sold most of the assets of its ReplayTV digital video recorder business to DirecTV Group (NASD: DTV). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Los Angeles - The Championship Gaming Series announced on Tuesday that its inaugural World Final, which will feature a prize purse of $1 million, will be held Dec. 6-14 at Sony Studios in Los Angeles. The 12 top CS teams from around the world will compete for a top prize of $500,000 at the event, which will be broadcast by DirecTV in the U.S.; BSkyB and others in the U.K.; ESPN STAR Sports in Asia; Sky in Mexico and Brazil; and DirecTV throughout the rest of Latin America. Other broadcast partners for mainland Europe are also being secured.

Los Angeles - Sling Media, a provider of TV place-shifting technology that lets consumers access their premium home TV channels while on the go from Internet-connected devices, has partnered with DirecTV to make NFL game telecasts available to its users, PaidContent.org reported. The deal will allow streaming of NFL games each Sunday from DirecTV boxes through a Slingbox device to computers or other Internet-ready devices. DirecTV parent company Liberty Media's chairman John Malone is an investor in Sling Media. Sling also signed a deal to allow its users to stream NHL games in June.

Los Angeles - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) announced on Tuesday that it will launch its first high-definition channel this fall on the DirecTV satellite service. MGM HD will be the studio's first wholly-owned channel in the U.S.; the company did not detail additional deployments with other satellite or cable providers. MGM already offers some 20 different feeds of MGM channels outside the U.S., in nearly 120 countries.

El Segundo, Calif. - Satellite TV provider DirecTV on Tuesday announced a promotional partnership with Vivendi's Blizzard Entertainment, publisher of the popular "World of Warcraft" massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Through Nov. 30, new DirecTV subscribers will be offered 11 free months of access to World of Warcraft. DirecTV also recently courted game-playing consumers with its deal to broadcast the Championship Gaming Series.

El Segundo, Calif. - Satellite TV provider DirecTV on Wednesday announced a partnership with Current Group to offer high-speed Internet and voice services over existing electric power lines to DirecTV subscribers.

Washington - Intelsat, a provider of satellite communications services, has put itself on the auction block, with major bidders including the team of EchoStar Communications and Liberty Media, according to various media reports.