Acquisition of a stake in MARODI TV

CANAL+ Group announces that it has acquired a stake in Senegalese production company MARODI TV, one of the major players in the creation of series in Africa. Its presence in Africa is strengthened and underscores its commitment to Africa’s creative economy.

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 own catalogue of over 600 hours of content.

With a community of 6 million subscribers on YouTube, 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.

Over the past 5 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 8 million CANAL+ subscribers in Africa. Together, the two companies have co-produced a catalogue of successful series such as EMPRISES and DÉCHÉANCES.

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.

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 of African creation from all cultures, particularly in the series genre, which is very popular with its audiences.

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."

In Africa, CANAL+ Group produces over 4,000 hours of African content and over 30 channels dedicated to the continent in 10 languages, takes as the first ambassador of content creation in French-speaking Africa.

ABOUT CANAL+ GROUP

CANAL+ Group, a subsidiary of Vivendi, is a leader in the creation and distribution of content in the world, with a presence in more than 50 countries and nearly 7,600 employees on every continent. CANAL+ Group has 26.4 million subscribers worldwide, including 17.1 million in Europe, 8.1 million in Africa and 1.2 million in Asia-Pacific. It is the largest shareholder in MultiChoice, the leader in pay-TV in English and Portuguese-speaking Africa; Viaplay, the Scandinavian leader in pay-TV and streaming; and is also a shareholder in Viu, a leading Asian streaming business. CANAL+ Group invests 3.5 billion euros in content every year, making the group a key player in sport (main funder in France of football and rugby, and the leading partner of UEFA and the EPL internationally), films (leading funder in France and Poland), series (including more than 50 original series per year in over 15 languages) and entertainment (documentaries, comedy, shows). CANAL+ Group offers over 2,000 channels, including 130 produced in-house. In addition to content creation and its own channels, CANAL+ Group acts as an aggregator or both linear channels global streaming services including, Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+. With the support of its subsidiary STUDIOCANAL and its network of 14 production companies, including 13 in Europe and one in the United States, CANAL+ Group is the leading producer and distributor of feature films and TV series in Europe. It holds a catalogue of nearly 9,000 titles from more than 60 countries, including those of Orange Studio following the acquisition of OCS by CANAL+ Group. CANAL+ Group is an innovative, technology-based company, with a leading direct to consumer digital offer via its CANAL+/myCANAL app, which is deploying internationally at an accelerating rate and currently has a presence in more than 40 countries and territories. canalplusgroup.com/en

ABOUT MARODI TV

MARODI TV is the leader in the creation, production and broadcast of original Senegalese content in Wolof and French. Created in 2012, first as a replay platform for Senegalese television programs, it began producing series from 2016. These programs were first broadcast on Senegalese television stations and on YouTube before arriving in the sub-region of West Africa, in their version dubbed in French, from 2020, thanks to the partnership with the pan-African channel A+ of CANAL+ Group. MARODI TV has also had collaborations with international channels such as BET or VOD platforms such as Amazon Prime Video. In a decade, Marodi has released flagship series such as "Pod et Maridhou", "Maitresse d'un Homme Marié" and "Golden" and has developed a community of more than 8 million members, including 6 million on YouTube (leading channel in French-speaking Africa), generating nearly 3 billion views on this platform. MARODI TV also specializes in the creation of promotional series for commercial or institutional partners with well-known titles such as “Adja” or “Yoon”.

CONTACTS

CANAL+ International: Hala Saab, hala.saab@canal-plus.com

CANAL+ Group: Elvire Charbonnel, elvire.charbonnel@canal-plus.com

MARODI TV: Moustapha Sakho, moustapha.sakho@marodi.tv