The story
Founded by Rémy Montagne in 1986.1
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.
At the start of September 2001, Média-Participations had brought Paris-based publishing company that specializing in historical and thematic works, Éditions Chronique (a publishing company founded in 1981 by Jacques Legrand), alongside its assets, with its unit being folded into Média-Participations' in-house publishing subsidiary Dargaud.
One year later in 2002, Média-Participations had acquired Storimages, an animation production studio formed in on 1 September 1995 by Odile Limousin and Sylvie Martin, the acquisition of Storimages had further increased Média-Participations' animation production portfolio with Storimages being placed under Dargaud's animation production unit Dargaud Marina while Storimages' co-founders Odile Limousin and Sylvie Martin continued leading the studio.
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 while Ellipsanime was placed under Dargaud Marina with their distribution division Dargaud Distribution taking over Ellipsanime's programming library and its future projects.
In late June 2004, Média-Participations' animation production activities were strengthened when they acquired Belgian publishing house and Dargaud & 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. 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.
The publisher is now the third largest publisher of France, and the major Franco-Belgian comics publisher. 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.
Read the full text
On January 31, 2007, Média-Participations announced the launch of a management and distribution subsidiary dedicated to overseeing all of publishing and animation production activities 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 catalogue.
In August 2007, Média-Participations and its Belgian publishing company Dupuis had partnered with Belgian broadcasting network RTBF to form an in-house Belgian graphic & animation production studio called DreamWall, the new animation studio will be located in Marcinelle, Charleroi and would handle all of the animated television series produced by Média-Participations' animation studios including Dupuis Audiovisuel, Ellipsanime and Dargaud Media alongside outside studios starting with the television series Cedric with Dupuis holding a 51% in the new animation studio and RTBF holding a 49% in the new studio.
In February 2009, Média-Participations entered the video game publishing industry by acquiring a French computer software company, Anuman Interactive.
In September 2013, Média-Participations through its anime-home video label Kana Home Video had partnered with Viz Media Europe, The European division of American entertainment company & Japanese manga publisher Viz Media via Kaźe to promote Japanese anime for the European market by merging the former's website Genzai with the latter's own website K2Play into one anime SVOD platform entitled ADN (Anime Digital Network) which launched a month later in October of that year. American anime-streaming service Crunchyroll would take over ADN when it brought a majority stake in its parent Viz Media Europe five years later in December 2019, but three years later on July 27, 2022, Média-Participations acquired full ownership of the streaming service with the streaming service being rebranded to Animation Digital Network as it switched its focus from Japanese anime when Crunchyroll partered ways with the French streaming platform to focus on the latter's own streaming platforms.
In September 2017, the company entered exclusive discussions to acquire fellow French publishing company La Martinière Groupe the parent of its division Editions de La Martinière alongside its imprints including France's most famous prestigious literary imprints Editions du Seuil and American art & children's publishing inprint Abrams Books. Three months later in December of that year, the French government approved Média-Participations' planned acquisition of French publishing company La Martinière Group alongside its imprints such as famous publishing imprint Editions du Seuil and the group's American publishing imprint Abrams Books
One year later on May 29, 2018, Média-Participations expanded into the theme park operations with the launch of its theme park in Monteux entitled Parc Spirou Provence, the new theme park brings all the comic book characters from comic books such as Spirou and Marsupilami originally published by Média-Participations' Belgian publishing arm Dupuis under one theme park which was delayed from its original 2015 announcement.
In December 2019, following the departure of Média-Participations' previous CEO & president of its animation production companies and its Paris and Angoulême-based animation production studio Ellipse Studio, Maïa Tubiana, back in September of that year, Média-Participations had appointed Caroline Duvochel to be their new CEO of Média-Particiaptions' animation production activities namely Dargaud Media, French/Belgian audiovisuel production company Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel, Ellipsanime Productions and its Paris and Angoulême-based in-house animation production studio Ellipse Studio.
At the start of April 2020, Média-Participations appointed former Studio 100 Animation managing director & executive producer Katell France to lead its animation production group including Dargaud Media, Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel, Ellipsanime Productions and Paris & Angoulême-based animation studio Ellipse Studio under the role of consuling producer for the group's programming state.
In May 2022, Média-Participations entered a stragic partnetship with French music streaming service Deezer to develop & produce new audio experience content based on Média-Participations' massive portfolik of comic book brands, books and characters into audiobooks and audio dramas with them taking an investment in the French music streaming platform Deezer.
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, and Ellipsanime Productions) 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.
In January 2026, Média-Participations extended its animation business by acquiring a 25% stake in Paris-based animation company Miyu Productions including its distribution arm Miyu Distribution and entered a partnership with them to produce projects for its anime streaming platform Animation Digital Network.
From Wikipedia’s article on Média-Participations, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4