News Broadcasting
BBC’s sitcom ‘The Office’ to get a French flavour
MUMBAI: The BBC’s sitcom The Office, is about to cross the Channel to wow French audiences with their version of the show.
Le Bureau has been licenced from BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, and has just finished filming with French cast and the original script adapted into French. It is due to hit French TV screens on Canal+ in the Spring, and will be the first time the Golden Globe-winning comedy has been produced in a foreign language.
Writer and star of The Office, Ricky Gervais, says, “I am still genuinely shocked at The Office’s appeal in other countries. We didn’t write it with a world market in mind. In fact, we never thought it would be a huge hit in Britain. We wrote it for ourselves and like-minded people. There are a lot more of those people that we could have imagined. But I won’t be happy till I see an Inuit doing the dance.”
BBC Worldwide director of formats Colin Jarvis says, “This is an exciting move for The Office. We’ll be watching closely to see how the humour and interaction between the beleaguered staff and the overzealous boss play out in a completely different language and culture. But the move paves the way for a whole set of David Brents to appear across the world.”
Wernham-Hogg, the Slough-based paper mill, where nothing ever seemed to get done becomes Cogirep, a down-at-heel office based in the featureless Villepinte, a well-known business park to the north of Paris. The cast, as in the original version, is made up of mainly unknown actors, with the exception of office manager Gilles Triquet, Francois Berléand, (pictured), who fills the role of Ricky Gervais’ David Brent.
A slightly older version of his UK counterpart, Triquet will be just as beleaguered, and it is hoped that his bizarre philosophies on life, which came to be known affectionately in the UK as ‘Brent-isms’, will be heard all over the country.
The Office was first broadcast in the UK five eyars ago and ran for two series with two Christmas specials. The series finale, broadcast in 2003 reached 6.14 million viewers.
Although Le Bureau will be the first foreign language version of the sitcom, the original stories have been sold in 80 countries worldwide making it the most successful BBC comedy export of all time. The format was sold to the US two years ago, following the sitcom’s Golden Globe win, where it aired its initial 16 episodes over two seasons on NBC. It has recently been recommissioned for a third series, comprising 28 episodes.
News Broadcasting
News18 India to air Sabse Bada Dangal on 4 May counting day
Channel promises fastest results, live trends and analysis across five states.
MUMBAI: Ballots will do the talking and screens will do the shouting. As counting day approaches for high-stakes Assembly elections across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry, News18 India is gearing up for an all-day broadcast of its flagship election show, Sabse Bada Dangal, on 4 May from 6 am onwards. The Hindi news channel plans to deliver continuous, real-time updates as votes are tallied, combining live counting data with on-ground reporting and studio analysis. With political fortunes set to shift through the day, the coverage will track every swing, surge and surprise as trends turn into results.
The broadcast will feature a mix of senior political leaders, analysts and experts, offering instant reactions and decoding the evolving electoral picture. Expect heated debates, quick takes and detailed breakdowns as the numbers settle across all five states.
For News18 India, counting day has long been a high-visibility moment. The network is banking on its reporting reach, editorial bandwidth and technology-driven coverage to stay ahead in what is often a fiercely competitive news cycle.
With multiple battlegrounds and shifting narratives, the day promises both drama and data in equal measure. And if all goes to plan, Sabse Bada Dangal will once again turn the counting of votes into prime-time spectacle.
