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Wednesday, December 30, 1998 2:31:09 PM EST

• MTV scores German chancellor's first New Year's address
• Japanese filmmaker Kinoshita dead at 86
• Second City makes Cleveland its fourth city
• Poll: Utah County residents support abridged 'Titanic'
• CBS ditches little seen Eye on People

Schroeder

HAMBURG, Germany (CNN) -- Does CNN have new competition? MTV -- the all-music channel that has delved into wider programming -- announced Monday that it will air German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's first New Year's address to the nation. The taped address will be shown during an afternoon New Year's Eve special.

Germany's public stations traditionally broadcast the chancellor's New Year's speech after their evening news programs. MTV said the decision to run Schroeder's address was a reaction to the positive response it got to its German election night coverage in September.

TOKYO (CNN) -- Japan has lost another influential filmmaker. Keisuke Kinoshita, a prominent Japanese director noted for tackling contemporary social problems and depicting the beauty of human weakness in his films, died Wednesday of a stroke, his family said. He was 86.

Kinoshita made his directorial debut with "The Port where Flowers Bloom" in 1943, the same year Akira Kurosawa directed his first film. Kurosawa, one of Japan's most famous filmmakers, died at the age of 88 on September 6.

Kinoshita's most successful and best known film was "Twenty-four Eyes," which won the Kinema Jumpo Award, one of Japan's top cinema prizes, as the best movie of 1954. "Kinoshita depicted the feelings and beauty of human weakness, in contrast to Kurosawa, who depicted people's strength," said Taichi Yamada, a noted Japanese playwright. Kinoshita's other famous films include "Carmen Comes Home" in 1951 and "The Ballad of Narayama" in 1958.

The Second City theater in Chicago will be adding a new member to its family

CLEVELAND (CNN) -- The Second City, a sketch comedy group known as a springboard for comedians including Joan Rivers, Chris Farley and John Belushi, is about to expand to its fourth city. The group plans to put a resident troupe in Cleveland next spring. It will play in the city's new, 350-seat theater downtown, said Andrew Alexander, The Second City owner.

Alexander feels Cleveland's growing theater district "would be a great market for Second City," he said Tuesday. The Cleveland troupe will mix new cast members with seasoned talent. The group's performances include scripted sketches and improvisation. The Second City already has troupes in Chicago, Detroit and Toronto.

"Titanic"

SPRINGVILLE, Utah (CNN) -- A Springville couple who have been editing privately-owned videotapes of "Titanic" are getting the support of the majority of Utah County residents, a new poll shows. Don and Carol Biesinger, the owners of Sunrise Family Video in American Fork, have received 4,200 orders to trim love scenes from video versions of the movie.

According to the poll conducted by Dan Jones and Associates, 62 percent of Utah County residents say they believe retail outlets are within their rights to edit personal videotapes. Thirty-two percent sided with Hollywood executives, who say Sunrise Family Video could be violating copyright laws with the editing. Six percent of poll respondents were unsure who to side with. The poll was conducted in mid-December and has a margin of error of five percent.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- CBS is ditching its little-seen cable network, Eye on People. The project, launched in March 1997, has been taken over by Discovery Communications, which will give it a new name, Discovery People, and a new logo as of January 11.

CBS had announced in July that it would sell a 50 percent stake in Eye on People to Discovery, and they would run it as a joint venture. When the companies closed the deal last week, it was believed the agreement had gone through as planned, but Discovery revealed otherwise in a statement Tuesday.

The parties declined to discuss the terms of the newly restructured deal. Eye on People has managed to sign only about 12 million subscribers since it started beaming its satellite signal 18 months ago.

Reuters Limited contributed to this report.