Montreal: Zone3’s start-up isn’t like anyone else’s.

The former Canadian division of Motion International, which spun off as a privately held company prior to TVA Group’s acquisition of Motion, officially opened for business last week with a production slate of more than 1,000 hours.

Zone3 anticipates $40 million in production in the year ahead, says vp creative and exec producer Michel Bissonnette. Principals, all former Motion execs, include: Andre Larin, president; Vincent Leduc, vp production; Paul Dupont-Hebert, vp live entertainment; and Bissonnette. Larin and Bissonnette will exec produce. The four managers hold 50% of the new production company. Telesystem Financial, Motion’s former majority shareholder, and Caisse de Depot subsidiary Capital Communications cdpq hold the balance. Zone3’s managers and investors paid a total of $10 million in a transaction with Motion.

Zone 3 is not prohibited from producing in any specific category in its deal with Motion, although nearly all the production is for French-language tv networks. One exception is Eros, a wtn adaptation of the Canal Vie erotica magazine Eros et Compagnie. While there are no immediate plans to coproduce with Europe, Bissonnette says, ‘I think by doing some production for the Internet all the production in a sense will become international.’

Zone3 will produce programming for tv and the Internet. It will also be active in artist management and as a live event and theatre producer.

Zone3 highlight productions for 2000/01 include tv host Marc Labreche’s new late-night talk show for Reseau tva, a daily Stephane Laporte-scripted sitcom series for Television Quatre Saisons, the hip society mag Les Francs-Tireurs produced for Tele-Quebec, the high-tech gadget series Technofolie for the recently launch Canal z, the kiddies show Bonjour Madame Croque-Crise for Tele-Quebec and Le Bunker, a new primetime Luc Dionne-scripted (Omerta) drama series for Radio-Canada.