Following the merger of Banijay Zodiak, a number of senior executive positions at Banijay Finland have been announced today. Tatu Ferchen has become CEO/EP, with Martti Sivonen taking the role of VP/EP and Alex Laszlo becoming CCO/EP.
Banijay Zodiak Finland's combined businesses are now among the top three players in the Finnish market, with revenues in 2015 of around 15m .
Going forward the combined Banijay Zodiak non-scripted activities will work under the Banijay Finland brand, with scripted activities led separately in Zodiak Finland under the continued leadership of Teea Hyyti .
Newcomers Tatu Ferchen and Alex Laszlo have most recently worked at Endemol Shine Finland as a strong team as both Creative Directors and EP's working on such productions as Married At First Sight, Masterchef, Minute To Win It, Gogglebox and The Biggest Loser as well as in-house devised shows such as Worst Chef, Love Diet and F####### Telemarketers.
Tatu Ferchen was previously a Commissioning Editor/Executive Producer at Nelonen working on shows including Best Singers, The Voice of Finland, and MasterChef and before that as a host, developer and producer with companies such as Story of, Moskito and Zodiak. Tatu has studied music at Sibelius Academy/University of the Arts Helsinki.
Alex Laszlo has worked in Shine Endemol for the past five years and previously worked at both Banijay and Zodiak in Finland as well as in Sweden as a producer and a host. Alex holds a BA in Media Arts from London College of Music & Media.
Martti Sivonen has been working in Banijay Finland for the past three years as CCO and Executive Producer of hit shows such as The Voice of Finland, Temptation Island and I Can Do That. Before that he was at Solar Television and Solar Films for 15 years having had multiple roles. He has studied in the University of Technology and is known as the guy with the highest IQ in Finnish television'.
Teea Hyyti has successfully been running the Zodiak Finland brand for the past 15 years having among many other tasks produced more than 200 hours of TV drama as well as three feature films. Her heart lies with fiction based stories, and since that area is a big priority in the new group, it was natural that she will continue running the scripted business, with current titles such as feature film sequel series Jill & Joy, YLE dramas including The President among others. Teea holds a Master of Arts from University of Helsinki.
Jacob Houlind, Banijay Zodiak Nordic Group CEO, comments, We are happy to be able to announce a powerful trio to lead all our non-scripted activities. To secure the highest level of creativity and fulfill the potential within both non-scripted as well as scripted content we have decided to split the activities in two. We are just as ambitious on both sides of the business and Teea is right now looking to recruit new people to join her team in the journey going forward in the scripted space. In my mind Tatu, Martti and Alex are the leading talents of Finnish entertainment television. They all know the business inside out and have experience as hands on producers on both small as well as some of the biggest shows of the nation.
Tatu Ferchen, Banijay Finland CEO, adds, Our joint entertainment activities will enable us to work on some of the biggest and most loved entertainment shows on television at the moment, but also to offer a wide range of fresh new shows from the numerous catalogues now under one roof. The new team has many years of experience in not only producing hit shows but also developing new ideas tailor made for our clients. I'm thrilled to be a part of this fantastic new team, both locally as well as globally.
Martti Sivonen, Banijay Finland VP/EP, adds, The addition of these two talented and much respected professionals to our new combined company will ensure the continuing success of our productions, from the big ones to the small and all between. We have close personal relations with all the clients as well as with the talent in front and behind the camera. And it doesn't hurt that the three of us have been close friends for years.
Alex Laszlo, Banijay Finland CCO/EP, adds, Our joint creative output will enable us to build on a strong, innovative and inspiring organization that can react very quickly to the needs of our clients. I am extremely excited and can't wait to get my hands on the amazing catalogues as well as to start developing new original content together with some of the most creative people in the field .
The merger of the non-scripted activities will take effect as of May 1st when Tatu Ferchen and Alex Laszlo will also start and move into the Zodiak Finland premises together with the Banijay Finland team. Further appointments and the final organisational lay-out at the two companies will be announced shortly.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Following the merger of Banijay Zodiak, a number of senior executive positions at Banijay Finland have been announced today. Tatu Ferchen has become CEO/EP, with Martti Sivonen taking the role of VP/EP and Alex Laszlo becoming CCO/EP.
