The German media company IN-motion, which was particularly active at this year's Amrican Film Market through its sales arms Myriad Pictures and J&M Entertainment, has further consolidated its position as a producer of internationally marketable TV formats by acquiring the rights to two TV series from US network CBS for an overall price tag of $ 8m.

The deal with CBS includes the US rights to the first 22 episodes of the action series 18 Wheels Of Justice, which had been co-produced by IN-motion and aired in the US on TNN, and the worldwide rights to 66 episodes of three seasons of Pensacola.

For the second and third seasons of 18 Wheels of Justice - 44 episodes in total - IN-motion is serving as the sole producer with part of the financing being provided by the Frankfurt-based World Media funds.

Commenting on the rights deal with CBS, an ad-hoc statement from IN-motion declared that "through the acquisition of the rights as well as the production of further 44 one-hour long episodes, the media company continues to build up its own well-marketable library with high quality international titles, generating considerable sales and growth potential".

This latest development comes after IN-motion posted a 472% increase in sales for the first quarter of the 2000/2001 financial year to $18.84m (DM 39.63m) compared to the previous year, with the operating result (EBIT) climbing from $1.23m (DM 2.59m) to $3.13m (DM 6.58m).

The company announced that it was "confident" it would fulfil its previously announced sales forecast of $144.96m (DM 305m) as well as an EBIT of $28.14m (DM 59.2m) for the current financial year, and pointed out that the films in its production pipeline will be finished before the end of March "so that the company will not be affected by the looming Hollywood strike".