France's two leading television production outfits - Canal Plus subsidiary Ellipse Programme and the Expand group - plan to merge their production labels and libraries to create a new entity with annual revenues of $212m (FFR1.4bn).

The new group, which will operate under the Expand banner, will control a library of more than 5,000 hours of television programming, including more than 1,500 hours of drama programming, 625 hours of documentaries and 510 hours of animated programmes.

In addition Expand will have a production capacity of about 1,800 hours of programming a year. The two companies are highly complementary as Ellipse specialises in high-end drama - under its Alya and Le Sabre production banners -while Expand's main strength lies in gameshows and entertainment programming. Ellipse also produces animated series, including Babar and Tintin, through its animation studios Ellipseanime, Le Studio Ellipse, Le Studio Angouleme and the recently launched Ellipse Deutschland.

The Expand group's holding company, Finexpand, which currently holds 48.3% of Expand's voting shares, will hold a 24% stake and 37% of the voting shares in the new entity. Canal Plus will hold 35% of the voting shares and a 35% equity stake. Expand's co-presidents Patrick Wallaert and Philipe Poiret will co-chair the new group.