MONTREAL — Zone3, one of Quebec’s most prolific TV makers, has struck a deal to expand into the English-Canadian market with lifestyle and reality TV in the language of Shakespeare.

Zone3, which produces more than 700 hours of television each year, has signed an agreement with Incendo to create programming for English-language broadcasters.

‘It’s a complementary alliance,’ Zone3 executive producer Isabelle-Anouk Bourduas tells Playback Daily. ‘Incendo distributes all of Fox Network’s material in Canada. They have privileged information about what Canadian broadcasters want.’

Those broadcasters have been telling Incendo that they want reality and lifestyle programs to slot into their grids between American shows to fulfill Canadian-content regulations, says Bourduas.

That’s where Zone3 comes in.

In addition to its slate of award-winning French-language productions such as the drama Minuit, le soir and the comedies 3600 seconds d’extase and Infoman, the Montreal-based company will now make English-language docu-soaps and reality shows that Incendo can include in the package of American programming it peddles to Canadian broadcasters.

‘The idea is not to try to make American series better than Americans. But in lifestyle programming, it’s often difficult to tell the difference between Canadian and American shows,’ says Bourduas.

A company such as Zone3 is at an advantage over an American producer because it’s easier for Canadians to ‘package and finance’ their programs, she says. Canadian producers have access to Canada Media Fund money and tax credits and also retain the copyright to their series.

Bourduas says Zone3 has several projects in development, including programs on mail-order brides, sex and food.

Incendo is one of the largest television distributors in Canada and the theatrical distributor for Paramount films in Quebec.