Fabrice Faux
Canal+ Group has acquired a stake in Senegalese production company Marodi TV, one of the major players in creating series in Africa. Marodi TV will continue to be managed by its founder and majority shareholder, Senegalese entrepreneur Serigne Massamba Ndour, who will be able to build on Canal+’s strengths to develop the quality and depth of its catalogue (including in other languages) and expand its distribution across the continent and beyond via synergies with Canal+. To this end, the two entities are working to set up an original catalogue for Canal+'s future channel in Pulaar, the language spoken by the Fulani community, which has a strong presence in Senegal, Guinea and Mali.
Founded in 2012 with the ambition of making quality African content accessible on all media, Marodi TV is positioned as the leading producer of series in Senegal, which are also very popular with the African diaspora, with its catalog of over 600 hours of content. With a community of 6 million YouTube subscribers, Marodi TV has based its success on broadcasting its series via digital platforms and local and pan-African television channels, such as Pod & Marichou, Maitresse D'un Homme Marié (Mistress Of A Married Man), and Karma, which rank among the most popular African series.
Fabrice Faux, Director of Channels and Content at Canal+ International, said: "We are delighted to strengthen our partnership with MARODI and to benefit from their invaluable expertise in developing our content offering. Based in Senegal, this producer benefits from an artistic, technical, linguistic, and climatic environment that is particularly conducive to audiovisual production. This investment again demonstrates our enduring commitment to growing Africa’s creative industries and our excitement and commercial optimism in its creative and media sectors.”
Serigne Massamba Ndour, CEO of Marodi TV, said: "I am delighted to have reached the end of this process with Canal+, a strategic partner with whom we have already been working for five years. This alliance will enable us to strengthen our production and broadcasting capabilities and export our model across the continent."
Over the past five years, Canal+ Group and Marodi have forged a strong partnership, enabling Marodi TV to broadcast its catalogue as part of Canal+ Group's channel line-up, as well as producing exclusive series with an initial broadcast on the Sunu Yeuf channel in Wolof, followed by a French-language exposure on the pan-African channel A+, both of which are available to fight million Canal+ subscribers in Africa. Together, the two companies have co-produced a catalog of successful series such as "Emprises" and "Déchéances."
Canal+ Group, already a majority shareholder in the production companies Rok Studios in Nigeria, PLAN A in Ivory Coast, and Zacu Entertainment in Rwanda, is thus reaffirming its commitment to supporting local talent and audiovisual production on the continent by joining forces with a new key local player. This strategy will enable Canal+ to offer its subscribers the best African creations from all cultures, particularly in the series genre, which is very popular with its audiences. In Africa, Canal+ Group produces over 4,000 hours of African content and over 30 channels dedicated to the continent in 10 languages, taking the role of the first ambassador of content creation in French-speaking Africa.