Apparently agreeing with producers that any young person old enough to be recruited by the military should be able to see what life in the military is all about, the MPAA has decided to allow the documentary Gunner Palace to open with a PG-13 rating, instead of an R. The film, about a group of U.S. soldiers living in a bombed-out palace that had once been owned by one of Saddam Hussein's sons, reportedly features more than 30 scenes in which the f-word is uttered. Although the MPAA has previously rejected demands to provide additional detailed information about its movie ratings, it did so for what may be the first time in the case of Gunner, noting specifically that the film uses "strong language not heard in previous PG-13-rated films." It added, "We want parents to take note of this important cautionary warning so they can better guide their children's movie viewing."

Disney may have concluded that hand-drawn animation is a relic of the past and shut down its domestic hand-drawn operations, but the relic proved to be mighty potent on Tuesday as its DVD re-release of Bambi sold one million copies in its first day on the shelves. According to Buena Vista Home Entertainment, the 1942 classic has been released on home video in VHS twice before, in September 1989 and February 1997. The remastered version released this week marks the first time the feature has been available on DVD. In a statement, Disney said that the restoration effort required "detailed frame-by-frame work on over 110,000 frames, requiring more than 9,600 hours of work." Priced at $24.99, the Bambi Special Edition is a 2-disc set that includes footage of story meetings with Walt Disney, deleted sequences, "The Making of Bambi" and numerous games.

A Durham, NC minister is organizing a campaign to persuade video stores to remove the animated feature Lil' Pimp from their shelves. The Revolution Studios production, originally scheduled for theatrical release in October 2003 by Sony, recently was released straight to video by Lion's Gate. It tells the story of a white misfit, rejected at home and at his suburban school, who is taken in by pimps and prostitutes in his town's inner city. It features the voices of Bernie Mac, Lil' Kim and Ludacris. Lil' Pimp was quickly denounced by the Rev. Paul Scott, founder of the Messianic Afrikan Nation in Durham, who maintained that it features degrading images of African-Americans. "Black children are given a warped, whitewashed version of history as it is, and movies like Lil' Pimp make the situation worse," Scott told the Charlotte News & Observer. Scott said that he had fired off letters to Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Blockbuster, demanding that they remove the feature from their shelves. "I haven't heard from any of them," he said.

Maxing out credit cards to pay for independent films may become a thing of the past if the scheme of a group of Dublin producers of a documentary about the mushrooming interest in Irish baseball proves to be successful. They've gone on eBay, offering the highest bidder a chance to appear in their film as well as an executive producer's credit. "Any fan of baseball would jump at a chance to be in a film like this, and certainly Irish fans of baseball should be particularly excited about this auction," John Fitzgerald, the producer of the film, said in a statement.

Despite recent reports that Netflix, the online DVD rental company, is planning to allow customers to download movies over the Internet instead of receive them by mail, the company's CEO appeared to retreat from that position Wednesday. In an interview with Reuters, CEO Reed Hastings remarked that so long as studios are earning as much as $15 per DVD, they have little incentive to deliver them via the Internet, which will pay them far less. However, Hastings predicted, "Eventually piracy will rise and the movie industry will allow more downloading to people like us."

Blockbuster has intensified its online rental war with Netflix, announcing today (Thursday) that it is integrating its in-store and online rental operations and offering new subscribers an introductory price of $9.99 for the first month. After that, the monthly fee rises to $14.99. In a statement, the company said that subscribers will be able to rent an unlimited number of movies, one at a time, in stores or three movies at a time online. "Blockbuster is the only company that lets customers choose to rent their movies at the store or through the mail," Nick Shepherd, president of U.S. Store Operations at Blockbuster, said in a statement.

A Pakistani actress who agreed to star in the first ever Pakistan-India coproduction, Nazar (Sight), said today (Thursday) that she had been threatened by "extremist elements" in her country after word leaked out that she had appeared in a kissing scene with her Indian costar. The actress, who uses only the name Meera, said that she had received death threats against her and her family. The French news agency Agence France Presse quoted her as saying that she had been accused of performing an obscene act, "I want protection. I want protection for me, my family. I want President Pervez Musharraf to ensure the safety of my family." Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country; India, Hindu. "I have not done anything in the movie which contravenes the norms of society I come from," she told AFP.

For the first time in its history, Fox TV has won a sweeps month, Nielsen announced officially today (Thursday). At the same time, NBC finished fourth for the first time in its history. Fox's victory was attributed to its Super Bowl telecast and the still-strong American Idol talent contest. ABC came in second, but also relied on a blockbuster event, the Academy Awards, to boost its numbers. In the cable news wars, CNN, with an average viewership of 637,000, continued to lose ground against Fox News, which averaged 1.57 million viewers. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the final night of the February sweeps, NBC was able to rush past Fox, which aired only a half-hour edition of Idol. A strong 7.9 rating and a 12 share for a special edition of Dateline, featuring an interview with Scott Peterson's sister, drew a strong 7.9/12 at 8:00, behind ABC's hit Lost, which landed an 11.3/18. NBC remained in second place at 9:00 as The West Wing registered a 7.3/11, while Fox's Idol drew a 14.2/21 and The Simple Life 3, an 8.1/12. At 10:00 p.m., NBC's Law & Order charged back, posting a 9.9/16. Overall, NBC averaged an 8.4/13 for the night, edging out Fox's 8.1/12. ABC placed third with a 7.8/12, while CBS trailed with a 7.1/11.

In what Bloomberg News described today (Thursday) as a "boardroom coup" that escalated a rift between Cablevision Chairman Charles Dolan and his son, CEO James Dolan, the senior Dolan ousted three directors and replaced them with two high-profile industry figures, Liberty Media Chairman John Malone and former Viacom and Universal CEO Frank Biondi, and two additional, lesser-known executives, former ITT Corp. Chairman Rand Araskog and former Citizens Communication Co. Chairman Leonard Tow. The move came as Dolan intensified his efforts to override his son's decision to shut down the company's satellite-TV subscriber service Voom, which has bled red ink since its inception, attracting only 26,000 subscribers. Dolan and another son, Thomas, have created a company to purchase Voom from Cablevision.

ABC's All My Children nabbed 18 Daytime Emmy nominations Wednesday to lead the pack of nominees; also receiving nominations for best daytime drama were As the World Turns, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless. In the best talk show category, The Ellen DeGeneres Show led with 11 nods; competing against DeGeneres are Dr. Phil, Live with Regis & Kelly, Soap Talk and The View.

EchoStar's DISH network is off and running with an interactive television horse racing channel that will allow viewers to place bets with their remotes -- provided they live in states where such gambling is legal. The service is being offered through the TVG Network, a subsidiary of Gemstar-TV Guide. "We are very excited to offer this cutting-edge product and to open new ways for TVG viewers to interact with our premium, live televised horse racing programming," Ryan O'Hara, president of TVG, said in a statement.

Efforts to keep Star Trek: Enterprise on the air received a big boost Tuesday when the group TrekUnited asserted that it had received "legally binding pledges" amounting to $3 million from three anonymous members of the commercial space travel industry -- undoubtedly the most money ever contributed to a campaign to support a canceled TV program. The three donors said in a statement posted on the TrekUnited website: "The people responsible at Paramount think this is just a show and we want to tell them, it is not. We ... would like to testify that at least [half] the entrepreneurs involved in this industry [have] been inspired by Star Trek; and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi , we are also good at writing checks, big checks."

ABC has ordered the producers of Boston Legal to remove all references to Fox News Channel from a forthcoming episode, the online edition of TV Guide reported Wednesday. In the episode scheduled to air on March 13, a high-school principal refuses to allow FNC to be shown on the school's TV sets. However, a spokesman for ABC said that the episode would violate a network rule not to allow "nonfiction references" to other networks' programming. Producer David E. Kelley declined to comment on the matter.

The Big 3 television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, realized a 12.1 percent gain in ad revenue during 2004, according to estimates released by the Broadcast Financial Management Association. The figures were bolstered by the Summer Olympics and the presidential elections. Nevertheless, revenue from political ads were down from 2000, the last presidential election, as both political parties diverted ad money from national spots to local stations in swing states. The report also took note of the fact that while advertising in primetime was up by more than 4.6 percent for the year, it was practically flat for the fourth quarter -- representing the start of the fall season.

After 78 years, the BBC's board of governors will be dismissed by the British government and replaced by a BBC Trust, to regulate and provide oversight for the publicly supported broadcaster, and an executive board to supervise day-to-day management. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said in a statement, "The current model of governance is unsustainable. The BBC governors, with their dual role of managing the BBC, but also holding it to account, will be replaced by two bodies, each with a clearly defined role." In a green paper that sets out terms for renewal of the corporation's royal charter in 2007, the government agreed to retain the license fee that British TV set owners must pay to support the BBC as a non-commercial entity, although it said that the funding issue will be reviewed again in about five years.