‘The Voice’ Creator John De Mol Exits ITV Studios As Company Reorganizes International Sales & Formats Business
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The Voice creator John De Mol is exiting ITV four years after the British broadcaster and producer acquired his company Talpa Media. This comes as ITV Studios has reorganized its international sales and formats business in a move that will see the closure of his Talpa Media brand.
Big Brother creator De Mol has chosen not to exercise his option to extend the earn-out period for a further three years. He will instead focus on the further development of his company Talpa Network, which owns a raft of broadcast networks in Holland, as of 2020, although he will continue to provide management services to Talpa Media until the end of April next year.
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The company said that it wished De Mol well and will continue to work with him via a first-look deal in relation to future formats.
ITV Studios, which sells shows including Love Island, has unveiled a new three-tier structure, designed to get the most out of its catalogue. From January 2020, the company is bringing its international business under three umbrellas: Creative Network, Global Entertainment and Global Distribution.
This also coincides with the exit of ITV Studios President of International Maria Kyriacou, who is joining Viacom, as reported earlier today.
Talpa Media as a brand will cease to exist with the company coming under Global Entertainment and lead by Maarten Meijs out of the Netherlands. It will represent the catalogues of Talpa Media, Armoza Formats, Twofour, which previously handled their own format sales, and the existing ITV Studios unscripted format catalogue and will include titles including The Voice, Love Island and Hell’s Kitchen.
Talpa’s production companies including Talpa Netherlands, Mas Media and Vorst Media will integrate into ITV Studios Netherlands, lead by Karin de Groot as CEO and Edwin van der Veen as COO, while Talpa Middle East and Talpa Germany will also be integrate into ITV Studios.
The Creative Network, which will be overseen by Mike Beale, will be tasked with boosting creativity across unscripted format labels in ITV Studios to increase the potential of developing global hit shows, Global Entertainment, which brings together international unscripted format sales and exploitation across the group under one roof and Global Distribution, which will focus on the international distribution of drama and the finished tape versions of all other ITV Studios programmes.
Armoza Formats, the Israeli based format creator that ITV recently bought will be part of the Creative Network, which will include the 36 non-scripted format labels in the group.
Global Distribution will be lead by Ruth Berry and will focus on the international distribution of drama and the finished tape versions of all other ITV Studios shows including dramas such as World on Fire, Noughts & Crosses and Romulus and docs including Magical Land of Oz and Wild Tokyo.
Julian Bellamy, Managing Director of ITV Studios said, “In line with ITV’s More Than TV strategy, this reorganization allows us to capitalize on the opportunity of a growing content marketplace, and to drive more value from our award-winning content. The centers of excellence strengthens ITV Studios potential to provide channel and platform partners with talked-about hit returning programs as well as building brands and franchises, in an increasingly competitive global market.”
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