– Top Gear: BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s overseas commercial arm, is responding to the online popularity of Top Gear with a push in the U.S. Although it is a U.K. show, unofficial Top Gear clips (including the high-speed crash that nearly killed a presenter) have proved popular on international file-sharing websites so now the BBC is trying to give the show to viewers officially. BBC Worldwide is building a redesigned website featuring programs from the show’s archive as part of “a strategy that will … push it as an internet entertainment brand” and drive up viewers on the little-watched BBC America channel, where latest Top Gear episodes are carried. (Via NMA).
– E Online: Because Aussies need their Lindsay Lohan fix, too – Hollywood celebrity content brand E Networks has struck an agreement with Microsoft’s Australian joint venture NineMSN to distribute its content Down Under – its first third-party content licensing arrangement. A new section of the site, which Microsoft owns 50/50 with PBL and which reaches eight million people, will launch next month with short videos from E! and Style Network TV shows including E! News, Planet Gossip and Fashion Police. (Via World Screen).
– Rockworld.tv, a U.K.-based rock music web TV channel, is amongst the latest to join distribution via Joost. The channel shows recorded alternative music gigs, interviews and news. (Via http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i7606d4e59e591cd71225429f15f1a0a7“