Toronto’s Insight Productions and Montreal-based Groupe Fair-Play are partnering to produce English and French-language formats and series across multiple unscripted sub-genres.

The partnership, announced by Insight CEO and chair John Brunton and Fair-Play’s executive director and founding shareholder, Michel St-Cyr (pictured right),  is effective today (March 27).

The companies plan to produce and develop new formats in  sub-genres such as variety, live specials, reality competitions, culinary shows, social experiments and more. Ownership of each series and format will be decided on a case-by-case basis, a spokesperson for the companies told Playback Daily.

“The formats that we are concentrating on also [involve] knowing what the buyers are looking for — [formats and series] that speak to the Canadian market in particular, who we will be pitching to, but also have an international appeal,” says Tanya Low (pictured left), Insight Productions SVP and chief development officer.

There is also discussion to shoot English and French versions concurrently — not as versioning but as two separate feeds of live events. Insight has considerable experience in the live space via events such as its Canada Day 2017 broadcast and its Juno Awards work, says the prodco’s co-chief content officer Lindsay Cox (pictured centre).

“We’re really focusing on that in our development as well and hoping that style of programming would actually be our first opportunity together as a partnership,” she says.

St-Cyr says he first met with Low about two years ago via a mutual friend. With most Quebec producers concentrating on selling their formats in Europe and not in English Canada, he explains, the partnership is about “more than just selling a format,” he says, but on both companies working on each other’s ideas with the same sensibility and gaining a foothold in each other’s markets.

While the conversations were ongoing over the last year and a half, the actual partnership came together quickly. “We sat down with [Brunton] and Michel and we talked about what it would look like for us to create this partnership,” said Cox. “We’ve been developing a couple of really big shows, and we have some other strategic partners who are looking to be involved in them.”

While there were no specifics given as to the size of the slate, neither company intends the partnership to only last in the short-term. “It’s really playing the long game,” says Cox.

Insight was previously owned by Boat Rocker but as was announced earlier this week, will soon be owned by Blue Ant Media.

Images courtesy of Insight Productions, Groupe Fair-Play