News

9 December 2008

COOPERATION BETWEEN ENDEMOL AND TALPA COMES TO AN END

Endemol and Talpa Media have ended their cooperation agreement regarding the international distribution and production of Talpa TV program formats. The agreement, which had been in place since October 2007, has been discontinued by mutual consent. Resulting deals involving TV series currently in production will still be completed. The creation of joint-venture production companies in the major Endemol markets - as announced in May - will not take place.

For each individual country and market, Talpa Media owner John de Mol wants to be able to determine himself whether it is best to work completely independently in distributing and producing TV formats; or to seek cooperation with existing production companies or strategic parties.

This year, the cooperation between Endemol and Talpa delivered a sizeable number of deals including: "Divided" ("De Gemene Deler"), which was sold in 10 countries; "I Love My Country" ("Ik Hou van Holland"), which went to six countries, with negotiations still running in many markets; "Vipers Nest" ("Gooische Vrouwen"), which was sold as a ready-made product in eight countries and is to be produced as a 16-episodes Russian-language series by Endemol Moscow; as well as various TV formats such as "Dating in the Dark", "Guesstimation" ("Wat schat je?") and "Celebrities on Welfare" ("De Frogers, effe geen cent te makken"), which are subject of concrete negotiations in various countries.

Having brought their cooperation agreement to a close Endemol and Talpa will both operate independently from now on.