Banijay Group Acquires France’s H20 Productions

October 9, 2012 World Screen Top Stories
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CANNES: On the back of its acquisition of Screentime, which expands its footprint into Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, the Banijay Group has purchased a new company, François de Brugada, the company’s executive VP, tells World Screen Newsflash.

Banijay Group’s acquisition of H20 Productions brings its number of French member companies to three. “It’s a small company, created around one person, Cyril Hanouna,” de Brugada said. “We’ve know Cyril for a very long time. Cyril is the rising star in France. He has been around for a while and this season he was being chased by three of the major players in the market. It was at the turning point where he felt like partnering with a bigger company would help him a lot because he’s doing great things by himself and could be doing even greater things with us. I think that was a win-win situation, in which we feel very comfortable.”
 
Hanouna has brought his long-running TV-themed entertainment show Touche pas a mon poste to the new Canal+ diginet D8 for its launch.
 
“We’re now working with the Canal+ Group, which was not in our scope in France,” says de Brugada. “We’re really happy with this new deal. It’s still a small company but we believe it could become a much larger company soon.”