Distribution
Amuz Distribution licenses multi award-winning ‘About Antoine’ to France Television
Mumbai: Amuz Distribution’s Alex Avon, VP of Global Distribution announced that France Television has acquired its multi-award-winning series About Antoine S1 for France Television. The series will air on France Television’s France.tv in Spring 2024.
About Antoine is an uplifting story of love and family triumphing over limitations. With authenticity, sensitivity, and humor the series tackles a rarely explored theme in fiction: life with a poly-handicapped child. Inspired by True Events. The series was produced by Amuz Distribution parent company, ComediHa! Productions, and aired on Club Illico in Quebec.
Featuring Edouard-B Larocque (George in the series) earned a nomination on 8 for Canada’s 2024 Young Artists Academy Awards, winners announced 21 July.
The series was the recipient of multiple awards in 2023. The Prix Gémeaux in Montreal bestowed the Best Supporting Role in a Comedy award for actress Micheline Bernard, while in La Rochelle at the Festival de la Fiction, About Antoine received the Best Francophone Foreign Fiction Award; winner of the MIPCOM Diversify TV Award for Representation of Disability in a Scripted Series; and About Antoine received a nomination in the Comedy Drama & Sitcom category for the prestigious Rose d’Or Awards.
Avon stated: “Amuz Distribution is thrilled that our partner France.tv will share our multi-award-winning series About Antoine with their viewers. This heart-felt show is sure be loved by French audiences as it has been in Canada. We’d also like to congratulate Edouard-B Larocque on his recent nomination for a Young Artists Academy Award.”
France.tv International Fictions Coproductions & Acquisitions manager Catherine Gaucher said, “As every year, as part of World Autism Awareness Day, France Télévisions Group is mobilizing and is committed to highlighting this neurodevelopmental disorder, still too little known, which would affect nearly 1 in 100 people. On this occasion, France Télévisions offers a special program to sensitize the general public to issues around autism, including the broadcast on france.tv of the multi-award-winning series “About Antoine”, which deals with this subject with sincerity, accuracy but also with humour.”
New Delhi: Prasar Bharati has thrown open applications for fresh capacity on DD Free Dish, signalling a timely opportunity for broadcasters looking to expand reach without long-term lock-ins. The public service broadcaster has issued a dual notice for its 95th and 96th online e-auctions, aimed at filling vacant MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 slots on a pro-rata basis for February and March 2026.
The two auctions are tentatively scheduled to begin on January 27, with allotments valid from February 1, 2026. Applications for both auctions close on January 21 at 3 pm, giving channels a narrow window to get their bids in.
The 95th e-auction will cover vacant MPEG-2 slots, while the 96th will focus on MPEG-4 capacity. Participation is limited to satellite television channels holding valid downlinking and uplinking permissions from the ministry of information and broadcasting. International public broadcasters cleared by the ministry are also eligible.
As with previous rounds, channels have been grouped into buckets based on genre and language, with sharply differentiated reserve prices reflecting reach and demand.
For the MPEG-2 auction, Hindi and Urdu general entertainment channels sit at the top of the pile. The starting reserve price for bucket A+ in the first round is Rs 2,63,48,000. Movie, music and sports channels in Hindi and Urdu follow in bucket A at Rs 2,10,14,000. Bhojpuri channels and other Hindi and Urdu genres, excluding devotional content, fall under bucket B with a reserve of Rs 1,78,62,000. Hindi and Urdu news channels in bucket C start at Rs 1,33,27,000, while bucket D, which includes regional language channels, English news and devotional or spiritual channels, begins at Rs 1,13,96,000.
The MPEG-4 auction comes in at a far leaner price point. News and current affairs channels in Hindi, English or pan-India languages, grouped under bucket G1, start at Rs 13,41,000. Non-news genres under bucket G2 have a reserve of Rs 8,80,000. Regional languages such as Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati in bucket R2 begin at Rs 4,84,000. Southern language channels in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, grouped under bucket R1, start at Rs 81,000, the same reserve price set for other scheduled 8 regional languages in bucket R3.
Prasar Bharati has underlined that compliance will be closely watched. Broadcasters must ensure that at least 75 per cent of their monthly programming, excluding advertisements, aligns with the declared genre and language. Any deviation could trigger show-cause notices or even removal from the DD Free Dish platform.
For channels chasing reach in a crowded market, the message is clear. The window is brief, the prices are set and the audience is waiting. On DD Free Dish, visibility still comes cheap, but only for those ready to move fast.
