Canadian-based Seagram, which said Wednesday that it expects to report an operating loss of $65 million for its Universal Studios unit in the current quarter, may be about to exit the motion picture business entirely, the Toronto Globe & Mail reported today (Thursday), citing a Hollywood insider. "The fact is the Seagram bosses don't know anything about this business and they keep proving it, " the source told the Globe & Mail. "I think they have no stomach to put another dime into this business." The $65 million loss compares with a $98-million gain during the same period a year ago, $58 million of which came from television operations of USA Networks, which no longer is included in the company's earnings estimates. A string of expensive box-office flops were blamed for the poor showing, including the recent Babe: Pig in the City (1998). "They should rename it: Babe: Pig at the Box Office, " Ehrenkrantz King Nussbaum analyst Barry Hyman told the Globe & Mail. Meanwhile, in connection with the completion of its acquisition of PolyGram, Seagram is expected to announce a major restructuring of its music division today. Published reports, citing industry sources, said that Seagram plans to cut 3, 100 "redundant" jobs in the division during the next six months.

The box-office performance of Bug's Life, A (1998) has exceeded the expectations of Pixar, the computer-animation company that created it, the company's CFO said Wednesday. "We're ecstatic, " Lawrence Levy told the Bloomberg Forum in San Francisco, as he observed that the film grossed $68.7 million through its second weekend compared with $64.7 million for Pixar's first feature, Toy Story (1995), which was released at about the same time three years ago. Toy Story (1995), he noted, is the third-highest grossing animated film of all time, behind Lion King, The (1994) and Aladdin (1992), from Disney, Pixar's production partner. He said that a total domestic take of $150 million is "definitely within the realm of possibility." Levy also noted that toys based on the characters in the movie are selling well, in contrast to 1995 when there wasn't enough Toy Story (1995) merchandise in the stores to meet demand. Even more important for Pixar is the fact that under its latest agreement with Disney, it will share equally in the profits for Bug's Life, A (1998).

New Line has released David Cronenberg's controversial Crash (1996) on DVD with both the original NC-17 cut and the theatrically released R-rated version included on the same disc. Likewise, Louis Malle's Damage (1992) is being released with the unrated and R-rated renderings on the DVD. Writing in today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times, critic Ernesto Lechner observes: "Seriously, folks, is there anybody who will choose seeing the R-rated version?" It has not been announced whether large video rental houses like Blockbuster that refuse to stock unrated and NC-17 releases will accept the dual-rated DVDs.

Deepa Mehta, the Canadian-based Indian director of Fire (1996), which has sparked violent protests by the Indian fundamentalist group Shiv Sena because of its treatment of lesbianism, has lashed out at the Indian government for its decision to ask the official censor board to reconsider the film. As reported in today's (Thursday) London Daily Telegraph, Mehta said, "The minister for information and broadcasting has played right into the hands of these people by sending the film back. He is putting out the message that by being lawless like the Shiv Sena, you can get what you want." The film has won numerous international awards and was a hit in India before the protests began.

American Express has agreed to spend "hundreds of millions" for a series of episodic commercials starring Jerry Seinfeld, the first of which will be shot in Los Angeles next week, New York Post columnist Neal Travis reported today (Thursday). According to Travis, the commercials will begin with Jerry acknowledging that his TV series is over and packing up his car in L.A. to drive home to New York. The succeeding spots will contain "an evolving story-line, " said Travis, as Seinfeld travels across the country, then arrives in New York where he will have to cope "with everyday Manhattan events." Former cast members and guest stars will also appear in the American Express spots, Travis reported, with former New York Mets player Keith Hernandez, who appeared on the TV series, returning for the first of the spots.

The major TV networks are caught in a vicious cycle of having to add additional commercial time to its programs to make up for a declining audience, then seeing that audience decline even further because viewers object to the added spots, Bloomberg News columnist Kathryn Harris observed today (Thursday). Moreover, she noted, because the networks have in some cases not been able to meet ratings guarantees to advertisers, they are being forced to run "make good" ads, adding to the commercial clutter. Debbie Solomon a senior partner in media research for J. Walter Thompson Co., told Harris, "It's been a very tough year for broadcasters ratings are down 6 percent from a year ago and there are going to be a lot of make-goods."

A tape included in a CBS 60 Minutes telecast showing Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering a fatal dose of potassium chloride to Thomas Youk, terminally ill with Lou Gehrig's disease, was played in a Waterford, MI courtroom Wednesday, following which Kevorkian was ordered to stand trial for first-degree murder and assisted suicide. Assistant Oakland County prosecutor John Skrzynski told the court, "I think the main evidence is the one he provided to the whole country." 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace told today's USA Today: "This is what he wanted. That's why he sent me the film."

In what would represent a huge setback for UPN's plans to establish itself as the "fifth" network, network execs are considering cutting back to four nights a week or perhaps even three, the New York Post reported today, citing Barry Baker president of Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns seven UPN affiliates. Baker told the newspaper that at a PaineWebber media conference in New York Tuesday, UPN "privately admitted" that it had made a mistake when it went from three to five nights this season, with a slate of shows that have wound up in the ratings cellar. UPN denied Baker's claim and another insider quoted by the newspaper remarked that there has been "bad blood" between UPN and Sinclair since Sinclair switched the affiliation of a large group of its stations from UPN to The WB in 1996.

NBC's decision to move 3rd Rock From the Sun back to Tuesday night, where it had previously scored high ratings, apparently backfired Tuesday when the sitcom produced the lowest ratings in its history for a first-run show, a 6.5 with an 11 share, according to Nielsen overnights. The results were well below the average for Mad About You which it replaced in the 8-8:30 half hour, and which itself had been the victim of a massive audience exodus. By contrast, ABC's rival Home Improvement zoomed in the ratings to an 11.2/18. The top performer for the night was ABC's NYPD Blue with a 13.0/22. Rick Schroder's second appearance -- and his first naked-butt scene -- was credited with producing the strong numbers.

Hearkening back to the early days of radio and TV, when opera stars frequently appeared on popular variety programs to lend them "class, " Luciano Pavarotti has been set to perform on NBC's Saturday Night Live this weekend. Pavarotti, who will become the first opera star to appear on the program since it debuted in 1975, is scheduled to perform the traditional Christmas carol "Adeste Fideles (O' Come, All Ye Faithful)" in a duet with pop singer Vanessa Williams.

In the largest media IPO ever, Infinity Broadcasting Corp., comprised of CBS's radio and billboard operations, sold 140 million shares -- 17 percent of the company -- at $20.40 each Wednesday, raising $2.87 billion. The stock began trading today (Thursday) on the NYSE under the symbol INF.

Shares in Internet company Broadcast.com soared 27 percent Wednesday to $69.75 after it announced a deal with the Nasdaq to broadcast quarterly earnings conference calls via live "streaming" technology for Nasdaq-listed companies.

The programming chief of a Singapore cable system told a conference of Asian cable executives meeting in her country today (Thursday) that it was a mistake for program marketers to try to tailor their product for "Asian values." As reported by the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Sandie Lee of Singapore Cable Vision told the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Assn. of Asia, "Every country has different values. There's not really a totally Asian value as such." She noted that many areas, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, are "more liberal than Singapore" but that Singapore's conservative moral values have become the guideline for many distributors. She noted for example, that when HBO tried to launch a channel in China, "they told the Chinese authorities: 'Don't worry, we have Singapore standards.' And the Chinese authorities said: 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine, Singapore standards are okay for us.'"