Sony and talpa in arabia and n africa Thursday 4 November 2010 - Sony Pictures Television Arabia FZ-LLC (SPT Arabia) and Talpa Media, the Dutch holding company owned by media entrepreneur, John de Mol, today announced an agreement that gives SPT Arabia the exclusive right to jointly produce with Talpa all Talpa's international formats across multiple TV genres throughout the region.
The co-production agreement encompasses Talpa's extensive catalogue of reality, game show and scripted content aimed at broadcasters across more than 20 countries extending from Morocco to Lebanon and from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia. The announcement was made by Talpa Media CEO, Pim Schmitz, and by SPT's president, international production, Kees Abrahams.
The joint activities of both companies within the agreement is overseen and managed by SPT Arabia's Ziad Kebbi who recently joined the Sony family along with Dany Karam following the formation of SPT Arabia. Today's announcement follows a similar agreement struck in April this year between SPT's affiliate business in Italy, Toro Produzioni S.r.l., and Talpa Media to service the local Italian TV market.
Commenting, Schmitz said: For Talpa Media, this agreement is as rational as it is effective. Numerous broadcasters in North Africa and the Middle East have shown interest in our TV formats in the past and continue to do so. Ziad Kebbi is familiar with Talpa's formats and has an extensive track record in the region. In SPT Arabia, Talpa Media has found exactly the right partner for this fast growing region.
Commenting, Abrahams said: This agreement is an important development for SPT as a producer with a growing formats presence in the Middle East and North Africa. Talpa already has a number of highly successful and established TV brands in the region and we look forward to working with them to expand that success and deliver to local broadcasters the high quality programming that viewers expect.
The Talpa Media catalogue includes appealing formats like: The Voice Of ', The Golden Cage', Dating in the Dark', Viper's Nest', Pretty Smart', M/F', Guesstimation', I Love My Country', Divided' and Know Your Nation'. (Descriptions on: http://www.talpa.tv/formats/all)
Talpa is rapidly expanding its international activities based on the success of its TV formats. In the past year, Talpa Media has set up co-operation deals with local partners active in the TV markets of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the UK, Germany, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. Furthermore, in May 2010 Talpa Media acquired a minority stake in the successful Russian production company Mir Reality
- ENDS -
ABOUT TALPA MEDIA HOLDING
Talpa Media, based in Laren, the Netherlands, is the holding firm that comprises John de Mols media activities. The company has its focus on several parts of the international media industry. In the past few years Talpa Media established itself as a full service development and production company. With Talpa Content the group operates its own creative development unit aimed at formats for television and multimedia concepts. Genres include reality, daily and weekly infotainment magazines, variety, game shows, fiction, comedy and feature film. Talpa Productions is the groups own TV production unit. Talpa Distribution is dedicated to the worldwide licensing of Talpa Contents formats and finished series. When it comes to the free to air platforms radio and TV, Talpa Media Group is a shareholder in RTL Nederland (www.rtl.nl). Talpa Media operates its own music division Talpa Music (www.talpamusic.nl). In 2010 Talpa Media acquired a stake in successful Russian producer Mir Reality. Besides this, Talpa Media and Shine France have a fifty-fifty joint venture aimed at the exploitation of Talpa formats in Europes French speaking markets. The cooperation with Warner Horizon for the US market is similar, like the ones with Warner Bros. International Television Production in the UK, Boomerang TV Group in Spain, SPT's Toro Produzioni in Italy, Axel Springer's Schwartzkopff TV in Germany and CBV in Portugal. Talpa and Shine Australia work together in Australia and New Zealand. Recently Talpa and Nordisk Film TV set up a joint venture aimed at the TV markets in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
ABOUT SONY PICTURES TELEVISION
Sony Pictures Television ( SPT ) is one of the television industry's leading content providers. It produces and distributes programming in every genre, including series, telefilms, theatrical releases and family entertainment around the world and for every platform: broadcast and cable television, first-run and off-network syndication and digital distribution. In addition to one of the industry's largest libraries of feature films and television shows, SPT boasts a current program slate that includes the top-rated daytime dramas and game shows, landmark off-network series, original animated series and critically acclaimed primetime dramas, comedies and telefilms. Internationally, SPT is a leader in local language productions around the world, some of which are co-produced with local partners and sells SPE-owned formats in approximately 70 countries. To better serve its clients and partners worldwide, SPT maintains offices throughout the world, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, the People's Republic of China, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Venezuela and the United Kingdom. SPTs worldwide television networks portfolio is a key strategy in SPEs long-range commitment to the global marketplace, with 122 channel feeds, which are available in more than 140 countries reaching almost 438 million households
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Sony and talpa in arabia and n africa Thursday 4 November 2010 - Sony Pictures Television Arabia FZ-LLC (SPT Arabia) and Talpa Media, the Dutch holding company owned by media entrepreneur, John de Mol, today announced an agreement that gives SPT Arabia the exclusive right to jointly produce with Talpa all Talpa's international formats across multiple TV genres throughout the region. 
