Banijay’s Righini leads Casta Diva start-up

Massimo Righini (left) and Fabio Nesi

Italian production company Casta Diva Group has launched a new television arm and hired former Banijay executive Massimo Righini as its chief creative officer.

Costa Diva Entertainment will be led by Righini, who has worked as a director, curator and creative producer on shows including Il Collegio for pubcaster Rai2, Seven Year Switch for Fox and the local adaptation of Bake Off for RealTime.

He left Banijay Italia after six years, first as creative producer and then as chief creative officer at Rome-based NonPanic Banijay. Righini led creative development, scouting of international formats, pitches and relationships with networks.

The new venture will focus on several unscripted genres, including dating, factual and documentary. It aims to create new original formats in addition to finding the best existing ones, which will be presented to Italian and foreign broadcasters and to international OTT services. Formats currently being considered include reality shows and TV series, as well as documenatry series.

Fabio Nesi, CEO of Casta Diva Pictures, said: “The group has always collaborated with the television industry. With Massimo Righini, we want to establish ourselves as an excellent Italian quality content provider.

“Our expertise, our speed of execution and our talent to propose international production solutions have distinguished us. Thanks to Righini’s experience we will accelerate down this path and we estimate, in the first year of collaboration, to achieve €3-5m [US$3.6-6m] turnover and for the following years of the plan”.

Righini added: “Today, more than ever, creativity must be available to broadcasters. At a time when the world economy is experiencing enormous difficulties, production modules must be reviewed. It will be a fun and necessary challenge. In Casta Diva Pictures, I will have the opportunity to collaborate with a team of high-level and well-trained Italian and international professionals.”