Média-Participations

Média-Participations (French pronunciation: [medja paʁtisipasjɔ̃]) is a French/Belgian publishing and media entertainment comconglomerate that specialized in publishing comics, magazines, literature, audiovisual production and video game publishing. They have a strong presence in the comic book publishing and entertainment industries with a focus on publishing, entertainment production and game development. It was founded in September 1986 by former business lawyer and former politician Rémy Montagne and they own forty publishing houses in its portfolio, including Dupuis, Dargaud, Le Lombard, Fleurus, La Martinière, and Abrams.

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 June 1997, Média-Participations alongside its publishing house Dargaud announced that they've acquired French animation and production company Marina Productions which was founded by Claude Berthier expanding Dargaud's animation output and Média-Participations' production activities with Marina Productions being placed under Dargaud's film & television production division Dargaud Films thrus becoming Dargaud's own animation subsidiary within Dargaud Films.^[1]

In July 2003, Média-Participations alongside their publishing house Dargaud announced they had acquired Paris-based French animation production studio Ellipsanime from its 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.^[2][3]

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 activities 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.^[4] 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.^[5]

The publisher is now the third largest publisher of France, and the major Franco-Belgian comics publisher.^[6] 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.^[7]

On January 31, 2007 Média-Participations announced the launch of a management and distribution subsidiary dedicated to overseeing all of publishing and animation production acitivites called Mediatoon who will bring all of Média-Participations' publishing and production activities under one roof, Dargaud Distribution the distribution division of Dargaud's production outfit Dargaud Marina who distributed Média-Participation' animated production catalogues was moved from Dargaud Marina and was placed under the new subsidiary Mediatoon, giving them an international distribution division and had it renamed to Mediatoon Distribution with Marie-Pierre Moulinjeune leading the rebranded distribution division whilst continued handling distribution to Média-Participations' programming catalouge.^[8]

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.^[9][10]

In June 2022 during the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Média-Participations announced that they were bringing all of their French animation production labels (which were Dargaud Media, French/Belgian audiovisuel production company Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel, Ellipsanime Productions and Les Cartooneurs Associés) along with their Paris and Angoulême-based in-house animation production studio Ellipse Studio under one animation production umbrella group named Ellipse Animation with Média-Participations's animation production labels became part of the new production company alongside Paris and Angoulême-based in-house animation production studio Ellipse Studio became Ellipse Animation's new animation studio division.^[11]

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 Lucky Comics (for Lucky Luke) and Blake et Mortimer.

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

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 its 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.^[11]
  • 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 its previous parent company Canal+ through StudioExpand;^[2][3] They acquired the library of the French television production company & animation studio MoonScoop S.A. in January 2014.^[12]
    • MadLab Animations^[13] - A Roubaulx-based animation joint-venture production studio between Ellipsanime Productions and independent game publishing & entertainment company Ankama Animations, that handles some of Ellipse Animations' shows such as Kid Lucky.
• Studio Campedelli - An Italian animation production studio that was founded in 2008 by Pietro Campedelli.
• Mediatoon Distribution - The international distribution subsidiary of Média-Participations that handles distribution of all of Ellipse Animation's programming; the distribution subsidiary was originally known as Dargaud Distribution before merging it with Dupuis Audiovisuel's distribution arm Dupuis Distribution in 2004 before splitting from its previous parent Dargaud Media in January 2007.^[14]
• Storimages

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

• 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

• 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

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