Lee acts to spike stolen name TV

The film director Spike Lee has been ordered to put up $2.5m (£1.5m) to continue his legal battle to stop a cable channel using the name "Spike TV".

The TNN cable channel, owned by Viacom International, wanted to alter its name in time for the launch yesterday of programmes aimed at the male market served by such publications as Maxim and FHM. It was billed as "America's first network for men".

Lee's lawyers argued that people might associate the "demeaning, vapid and quasi-pornographic content" of the new network with their client. (The network's main new show is Stripperella, involving an animated cartoon stripper, Agent 69.)

Viacom claimed that Lee's intervention was costing it millions in lost promotional material. Lee's lawyers said any damage suffered by the network might well compensated by the publicity generated by the case.