Média-Participations

Média-Participations () is a French media concern, controlled by a Belgian holding concern, specialized in Franco-Belgian comics. It has some forty publishers in its portfolio, including Dupuis, Dargaud, Le Lombard, Fleurus, La Martinière, and Abrams.

History

Média-Participations was created in 1986 by Rémy Montagne, a politician who had been a member of the French Parliament for three decades before starting in the publishing business. After his death in 1991, he was succeeded by his son Vincent.
The company was first called Ampère and focused on the acquisition of a number of struggling Christian publishing houses like Fleurus. In 1986, the group changed its name to Média-Participations and focused more on Franco-Belgian comics, which started when they acquired Le Lombard in 1986 and Dargaud in 1988.

In July 2003, Média-Participations alongside their publishing house Dargaud announced they had acquires Paris-based French animation production studio Ellipsanime from it's previous parent company Canal+ through their division StudioExpand, the acquisition of Ellipsanime gave both Média-Participations and its publishing house Dargaud another animation production studio with its publishing group Dargaud assuming all ownership of Ellipsanime's production activities with Ellipsanime's animated programming portfolio joining Dargaud's own largest animation production studio Dargaud Marina with their distribution division Dargaud Distribution taking over Ellipsanime's programming library and its future projects.

In late-June 2004 when Média-Participations's bid to acquire publishing company Editis had failed, Média-Participations announced they had acquired Belgian publishing house and Le Lombard's former rival publisher Dupuis alongside their Belgian/French audiovisuel production division Dupuis Audiovisuel (now Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel) and animation studio Belvision for €300 million, expanded both Média-Participations' publishing & animation production activites and reunited their publishing company Le Lombard with Dupuis. The acquisition also gave them two more animation production studios with Dupuis Audiovisual's distribution business being folded into Dargaud Distribution. In 2008 four years after Média-Participations failed a bid to acquire Editis, they renewed its bid on Editis, now for more than €1 billion.

The publisher is now the third largest publisher of France, and the major Franco-Belgian comics publisher. Of the 32 million books published a year, 20 million are comics. Magazine sales also reach 30 million copies a year. The group publishes around 600 publications a year, some 13% of the total number of Franco-Belgian comics, but these represent almost a third of the sales of comics in France.

In February 2009, Média-Participations entered the video game publishing industry by acquiring a French computer software company, Anuman Interactive.

In 2018, the company acquired La Martinière Groupe.

Asset activites

Comics

Comics and manga are published by six different publishers: the general audience publishers of Franco-Belgian comics Dupuis, Dargaud and Le Lombard, the publisher of manga Kana, and the specialized publishers (for ''Lucky Luke'') and Blake et Mortimer.

Multimedia

Média-Participations' handles their animation studios and video game publishing companies.

Animation studios

The group's animation production group Ellipse Animation through its production companies produced three to five new animation series every year. Media-Participations's international distribution subsidiary Mediatoon Distribution handle the group's catalogue over 3,000 hours of animation.

* Belvision - A historical animation production studio based in Belgium produced it's shows from the 1950s to the present day. They also co-produce shows that Ellipse Animation's production companies produced.

* Ellipse Animation - An entertainment & animation production group that handles all of Média-Participations three main animation productions studios under one roof.
** Dargaud Media
** Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel
** Ellipsanime Productions - A Paris-based French animation production subsidiary of Ellipse Animation those Média-Participations fellow publishing unit Dargaud had acquired from it's previous parent company Canal+ through StudioExpand; They acquired the library of the French television production company & animation studio MoonScoop S.A. in January 2014.
* Studio Campedelli - An Italian animation production studio that was founded in 2008 by Pietro Campedelli.
*Mediatoon Distribution
*Storimages

Magazines

*'' Spirou'', published by Dupuis
*'' Famille chrétienne'', published by Edifa
*different magazines by Rustica, including ''Système D''

Books

*Editions Chronique for thematic publications
*Le Ballon for children's books
*Fleurus for a wide variety of books, including many children's books
* La Martinière Groupe

VideoGames

* Syberia Series (as. Syberia, Syberia II and Syberia III is in development.) by: Microïds an Anuman software brand.
* Still Life series (as. Post Mortem, Still Life and Still Life 2) by: Microïds
* Dracula Series

Notes

External links

Homepage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Media-Participations
Christian publishing companies
Magazine publishing companies of France
Publishing companies established in 1986
French companies established in 1986