Orange pay TV unit teams up with SACD to develop series

French pay TV service Orange Cinéma Séries (OCS) has teamed up with copyright collecting society SACD to launch a funding project to help develop scripts for mid-form series of 26 minutes in length for OCS’s Signature programme.

OCS Signature has been responsible over the last six years for the development of a number of 26-minute series including Zak, Q.I., Lazy Company, InAmerica, FranceKbek, Irresponsable, Les Grands et Missions.

The SACD-OCS Signature fund, which will amount to a relatively modest €50,000 this year, will seek to help develop scripts for series of eight to 12 episodes on the theme of the rewriting of history based on the modification of a past event.

Five projects will initially be selected with awards of €5,000 granted to finance the writing of a pilot. A second round will one single project chosen from the five that will receive a further €25,000.

“This new fund is going to contribute to dynamism of French and French-language audiovisual creation. SACD is delighted to participate in its creation with a pay TV player that respects the rights of the author,” said Pascal Rogard, director-general of the SACD.

“OCS is continuing to invest in French content creation. In the framework of this commitment that we have maintained for over six years, it seems essential to us to team up with a leading player for the rights of the author such as SACD, to continue to support authors in the creation of innovative projects,” said Serge Laroye, president of OCS and deputy CEO of Orange Content.