The Duty learned that Quebecor is becoming a minority partner in Aetios, Fabienne Larouche’s production company, which until now has been mostly close to Radio-Canada. This is a major transaction in the Quebec television industry. Aetios now joins the long list of production companies now partly owned by broadcasters.
Led by Fabienne Larouche and her partner Michel Trudeau, Aetios has produced several of Radio-Canada’s big guns in recent years, starting with Statthe most listened to show currently during the week in Quebec. The company is also behind the immense successes that have been District 31 And Unit 9to name just a few.
Although very close to the public broadcaster since its founding in 1999, Aetios has also occasionally delivered a few series to TVA. This fall, the company is producing, among other things, The Weaponsthe new TVA feature that was scheduled to air at the same time as Dumasthe new fiction by Luc Dionne, also signed Aetios.
According to our information, Quebecor has been in discussions with Aetios for a minority stake in the company for several months. We learned that an agreement between the two parties was reached on Friday. The media giant, owner of TVA among others, therefore becomes a minority shareholder of Aetios. Michel Trudeau and Fabienne Larouche retain majority shares in the company.
Frequent
To be eligible for tax credits, a broadcaster cannot legally own more than 30% of an independent production company, such as Aetios. As revenues decline in the television industry, more and more independent companies are inclined to partner with broadcasters. Quebecor notably owns shares in Déferlantes (The Voice, Masked Singer, Star Academy…) and Pixcom (Indefensible, MasterChef…). Bell Media, which owns the general channel Noovo, is also a minority shareholder in Sphère Média, another of the main production companies in Quebec.
The fact that a private box is linked in this way to a broadcaster does not prevent it from producing programmes for another channel. Sphere, for example, produces Cerebruma series broadcast not on Noovo, but on Radio-Canada. Aetios, although now partly owned by Quebecor, will therefore be able to continue producing important series for the public broadcaster.
This promiscuity between broadcasters and private producers is denounced by some industry players, such as Louis Morissette, president of KOTV, a company that is not formally linked to a broadcaster, although considered close to Radio-Canada. In an article published in The Press In May, he argued that the involvement of broadcasters in production companies leads to less risk-taking, which would ultimately harm creators and artists, according to him.
More details will follow.