Lagardère Active has bought the 34 per cent of shares owned by France Television in youth and family DTT channel Gulli. Lagardère intends to launch an African French and English version next year.

The channel is already operating in Russia, along with preschool network TiJi. Following two years of talks, the groups have finally agreed a reported €25 million price.

Now the only shareholder of Gulli, Lagardère Active also plans to strengthen the positions of its channel in France which has seen a 20 per cent audience growth on the 4-10 demo. With 14 million videos views each month, Gulli catch-up TV service is also doing well Lagardère reports.

The group will also diversify the Gulli brand online and offline, launching new theme parks for instance.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Business, DTT/DSO, M&A