ITV Studios Extends Its International Footprint Opening ITV Studios France

ITV Studios today announced the opening of its seventh international production office, ITV Studios France. The new production centre will be based in Paris and ITV has appointed renowned international formats executive Francois Florentiny as Director General.

ITV Studios France forms part of ITV Studios’ growing global network of production offices, with successful operations now based in the UK, Los Angeles, Cologne, Madrid, Stockholm and Sydney.

The French operation will create new formats and exploit existing formats from ITV Studios, focusing on high-value scripted and unscripted genre programming.

Francois Florentiny, Director General of ITV Studios France said, “I am very pleased to join ITV Studios at this exciting time in its international development.  There are many opportunities and benefits for French broadcasters to work with us from the outset.  We are able to offer highly successful, tried and tested formats as well as develop tailor-made, innovative programming across many genres.”

Francois Florentiny launched his own creative format company, Flow Productions in 2004, consulting for many international companies including Télé Images, Coyote, Extreme Sports Channel (ChelloMedia), Scarlett Productions, NRJ12, Zadig Productions, ARTE, TLC, Nordisk and Banijay.

Florentiny has been instrumental in securing hit international formats for French broadcasters and has worked on a broad range of programming including primetime shows such as Les 60 Images Qui Ont Marqué les Français for TF1 which he devised with Coyote, the French version of Hole in The Wall and alerting the USA’s TLC to the top Scandinavian format Single Moms. He has also secured edgy cable programmes such as Next, Silent Library and the hit game-show Yes-No; documentaries including The Twenty Show - Myspace’s first cross-media documentary which he devised with Zadig; as well as scripted programming.

Lee Bartlett, Managing Director of ITV Studios said, “I’m delighted to announce the launch of our seventh production centre and the key appointment of Francois Florentiny – one of the best formats consultants in the business.  Our international growth strategy is based on the continued expansion of our global production footprint and the creation of new formats in each country that can travel to other members of our group.  Francois has an exceptional knowledge of the French market and, with him at the helm, we are looking forward to working with many broadcast clients throughout France.”

Remy Blumenfeld, Director of Formats at ITV Studios said, “We¹re opening shop in France because the French already love our programmes. Francois is the perfect person to run ITV Studios France because commissioners there trust him to know exactly what they want and to bring them the best scripted and unscripted formats from around the world.”

ITV Studios’ finished programme sales will continue to be handled out of the company’s London office by ITV Studios Global Entertainment Sales Executive David Wilcox, led by Tobi de Graaff, Director Global TV Distribution.

A portfolio of ITV Studios’ formats are already successfully airing in France including the global entertainment phenomenon Come Dine with Me (Un Diner Presque Parfait). This format was launched on M6 early 2008 in access primetime and, with ratings well above the slot average, the show has aired daily ever since, recently making the successful move to primetime where the series achieved an 18% share of viewers. Pasapalabra (En Toutes Lettres) is currently broadcast daily on France 2 in access prime time.  Other ITV Studios’ formats to air in France include The Rich List (La Liste Gagnante) in daytime on France 3; I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! on TF1 and The Nation’s Sexiest on NRJ12.

In October 2009, ITV opened ITV Studios Spain SL, and the Madrid based production office recently announced a two-pilot commission with Telecinco, Spain’s largest commercial broadcaster. Additionally, ITV Studios continues to co-produce further installments of the hit primetime entertainment game-show Pasapalabra with Telecinco – the channel’s #1 rating programme.