Partnering with fellow talent-led production outfits and adding more foreign companies to its portfolio are all part of French outfit Satisfaction Group’s growth strategy over the coming years.

Jacques ‘Arthur’ Essebag

Be it Ant & Dec and Davina in the UK, or Oprah and Conan in the US, there’s an exclusive group of people who grace every nation’s TV screens who are instantly recognisable by their first names only.

On the French list of well-loved TV hosts is Arthur, born Jacques Essebag in Casablanca in 1966, who is known for hosting comedy shows and TF1 stalwarts Ce Soir Avec Arthur and Vendredi, Tout est Permis Avec Arthur.

You can also add Essebag to the list of famous people who own production companies. The TV veteran has been linked to the development of France’s unscripted industry since the 1990s, when he went into business with Stéphane Courbit – now Banjay Group’s chairman – to create what eventually became the foundation for Endemol France.

Essebag was at one point VP of Endemol France, before leaving to start again by launching his own indie, Satisfaction, in 2010 as part of Arthur World Participation Group.

It has ambitious growth plans and Essebag was at MipTV in Cannes last month as the indie’s umbrella company, Satisfaction Group, looked to grow its international presence. Speaking to C21 shortly after the market, Essebag said he is eyeing companies in Spain, Italy, the UK, Nordics and US, while closer to home it is set to acquire Carson Prod, whose co-founder, Franck Saurat, died last December.

“Our DNA is to be agile and fast. We’re looking for companies with the same DNA and not a big structure. We’re very focused on finding partnerships with talent and creators,” said Essebag.

Specialising in unscripted, Satisfaction Group now produces more than 1,000 hours of TV every year and has a healthy library of formats following its acquisition of the French operations of Sony Pictures Television (SPT) in 2020, including Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Dragons’ Den in France, which sit alongside its own creations, such as Divided and Liar Liar.

The group currently owns a roster of French production companies that includes Ah Production, Enibas, Ellimac, La Grosse Equipe, Factual Factory and Alef One.

Gameshow Visual Suspect launched on TF1

Since the SPT France, deal it has struck strategic joint-venture agreements with a trio of major players in the unscripted space, all of which have close links to on-screen talent.

First came a deal with John de Mol’s Talpa Network in 2021 to give it access to the Dutch company’s formats in France. Satisfaction went on to sell Talpa’s quizshow The Floor to France Télévisions, which is set to launch it locally this summer.

It’s this kind of deal that highlights how Satisfaction has become something of a go-to for non-French producers and creatives who aren’t affiliated with big groups looking to get their formats on air in France.

“It has always been a pleasure to work with a professional like Arthur – he is the best partner in France to join,” said de Mol in 2021.

More recently, the Anything Goes creator set up a joint venture with UK- and US-based Fulwell 73 after Satisfaction launched Visual Suspect on TF1 in France at the end of 2022, having been inspired to create the format after seeing a segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, which Fulwell 73 coproduces.

The collaboration will see the two independent production groups develop concepts for their respective markets and for audiences worldwide.

Satisfaction also recently made an undisclosed but “significant” investment in Yes Yes Media, the fledgling TV and tech entertainment company founded by broadcaster and format developer Richard Bacon, a well-known face on UK TV screens since the 1990s.

Yes Yes Media is also backed by Sister, the media group co-founded by Elisabeth Murdoch, Jane Featherstone and Stacey Snider, as well as Friends star Courteney Cox and songwriters Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol and Savan Kotecha.

The TV format development partnership between Yes Yes Media and Satisfaction will see them create new unscripted formats for local and global buyers. It comes after Satisfaction picked up former Blue Peter presenter Bacon’s formats I Literally Just Told You and Silence is Golden for France.

Paris-based Satisfaction is part of a swathe of new production groups springing up in Europe, largely led by France and triggered by high-level consolidation, as well as the hitherto huge demand for content from streamers.

As well as the mighty Banijay – the world’s largest independent production and distribution group – France is also home to other large media groups such as Mediawan, Asacha Media Group, Newen Studios Group and Federation Entertainment.

Satisfaction licensed Talpa quizshow The Floor to France Télévisions

Satisfaction is rubbing up against all of these or, as Essebag put it: “We are the smallest of the biggest and the biggest of the small ones.” But unlike the aforementioned groups, many of which have plenty of prodcos abroad, Satisfaction has so far been focused solely on France, something that is set to change over the next few years.

Essebag’s intention is clear, driven by a belief that unscripted, rather than scripted, is going to be the most in-demand type of TV in the coming years. “My concern is to create and get as many formats as possible. We are expanding Satisfaction in Europe because we need to increase our business and France is too small,” he said.

Essebag is encouraged by the decisions by broadcasters to dedicate more slots in their schedules to unscripted, as TF1 has done with Tuesday evenings, which now feature big hitters such as Survivor and Family Feud, the latter made by Satisfaction prodco Ellimac Productions.

“There’s going to be more unscripted in primetime. It’s faster and also less expensive; a French scripted show will cost you three to four times the price of an unscripted show in primetime. And now streamers like Netflix, Disney and Prime Video are asking for unscripted and reality,” said Essebag.

To that end, Disney and Fox Alternative Entertainment recently tapped Satisfaction Group’s Ah! Production (acquired in 2018) to make reality dating show Love Trip: Paris for its youth-skewing network Freeform, which saw four Americans head to a Parisian penthouse in search of love.

More revenue via digital avenues such as free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels are on the radar for Essebag, who believes what he calls the gameshow revival in Europe and the US will prove a boon to those with large catalogues of proven formats.

“There’s new revenue coming from social networks and FAST,” said Essebag, whose Satisfaction Group has a digital arm that has launched a handful of FAST TV channels on Samsung TV Plus. He adds that a 12×5′ segments from a popular unscripted show, if positioned correctly on Facebook, can provide “huge” revenue over the course of a year.

One eventuality over the next three years is that Satisfaction could become part of a French production and distribution giant, be it Banijay, with whom Essebag still has a positive relationship, or Newen, which is owned by TF1, a broadcaster with whom the presenter has close ties.

“Maybe in the next few years I will need to be backed by a bigger group, but it’s not the right moment now. I don’t even think about it,” said Essebag, who instead wants to see Satisfaction replicate the market share it enjoys in France in other countries.

“In two to three years, I would like to have the same market share and DNA in the UK, Spain, Italy, US, Nordics and Germany. We want to expand our formats worldwide as much as we can. The next three years will be the era of unscripted, just like 20 years ago.”

Interview by Jonathan Webdale