Jacques Arthur ESSEBAG

Jacques ESSEBAG began his career on a local radio station, Radio Massy Palaiseau, in the Paris suburbs, before switching to Radio Nord Essonne, where he hosted a programme called Tonus. He quickly came to the attention of the boss of Radio RFM and, in 1987, was invited to take part in a radio presenters contest, which he won. He was then hired to host a nighttime show on RFM, which he did for just a month before being catapulted into presenting the station’s primetime 6 to 9 am slot.

It was at this point that he adopted the pseudonym Arthur. In 1988 he continued his career at Kiss FM. A year later he jumped ship for Skyrock radio, and in 1991 went to join the team at Fun Radio. He then spent four years at Europe 1, and three at Europe 2, before finally returning in 2000 to Fun Radio, where he stayed for four years and set up Planetarthur.com, the company that produces the radio shows he hosted. Then came a two-year stint back at Europe 2.

In 2010, Arthur bought OÜI FM and the following year purchased Radio de la Mer, which was sold in 2019 to GROUPEMENT 81.

TV – presenting and producing:

Since 1992, Arthur has hosted the following shows:

On France 2: Les Enfants de la Télé (which won the 7 d’Or award for best new show, and later aired on TF1), Les Enfants du Cinéma, Le Bêtisier du Samedi, La Fureur du Samedi Soir (which won the 7 d’Or award for best musical show in 1997).

On TF1: L’Emission Impossible, La Fureur, La Fureur du Parc Spéciale Fête de la Musique, Les P’tites Canailles, 120 Minutes de Bonheur, 120 Minutes de Bonheur Spéciale Réveillon du Jour de l’an 2000, 60‘ avant 2001, La Fureur de Béziers Spéciale Fête de la Musique, Club de l’Info Amateur (C.I.A), co-hosted with Dominique Farrugia, Rêve d’Un Soir, Rêve d’Un Jour, Personne n’est Parfait, Nice People (les prime times) co-hosted with Flavie Flament, A Prendre ou à Laisser, NRJ Music Awards 2007, Les Enfants du 31, Les stars se Dépassent pour ELA.

In 1994, Arthur set up Case Productions along with Stéphane Courbit. Four years later they went into partnership with Endemol and founded the ASP Endemol Group. They later successively set up Endemol Development, managed by Arthur, and Endemol France, co-managed alternately by Arthur and Stéphane Courbit until 2007. Through these two companies, they developed and bought several affiliates: Case Productions, ASP Productions, Niouprod, So Nice Productions, Planetarthur.com, Hubert Productions, PAF Productions, Société Miss France/Miss Europe, La Société du Spectacle, and La Boîte 2 Prod.

In 2010, Arthur Essebag created Satisfaction – The Television Agency, through which he produced and hosted Ce Soir Avec Arthur, first on the Comédie channel and then on TF1 (2010-2013), along with a range of other programmes: En Route Pour… (2011 et 2012), Arthur et les Incollables (2011), Des talents à Couper le Souffle (2011), Vendredi Tout Est Permis (2011), Le 31 Tout est Permis (2012), En Musique Tout est Permis (2013), Les Z’Awards (2014), Rock’n Roll Circus (2015), Stars Sous Hypnose (2014), Diversion (2017), Pas De Ça Entre Nous (2017), Les Touristes (2018), 3615 Code Arthur et Jarry (2018).

Satisfaction – The Television Agency also produced the programmes Stand Up TV, aired on Comédie+ in 2012, Claudia Tagbo & Co – le Grand Gala de l’Humour on France 4 (2013), Canapé Quiz presented by Arnaud Tsamere on TMC (2014), Ronde de Nuit on France 2 presented by Stéphane Bern (2015), Les 40 ans de l’INA on TF1, presented by Alessandra Sublet (2016), Deux Heures de Rires et d’Émotions on France 2, presented by Bruno Guillon and Stéphane Bern (2019), Deux Heures de Rires et de Direct on France 2, presented by Bruno Guillon and Stéphane Bern (2020), Stars à Nu, presented by Alessandra Sublet and Chris Marques (2020).

In 2012 Arthur created the Serenity Fiction company, which produced more than 300 episodes of Au Nom de la Vérité, a scripted Reality TV show broadcast on TF1, as well as Five Stars Publishing (A World Publishing), a music publishing company.

In 2017 Satisfaction acquired Ah! Production, an audiovisual production company founded by Antoine Henriquet in 2009 which is made up of three subsidiaries. Ah! Div produces non-scripted and variety shows (La Villa des Cœurs Brisés, La Bataille des Couples, Mamans & Célèbres) for French and international channels,

Ah! Doc specialises in documentaries (La Folle Histoire de…), and Ah! Corp in corporate videos.

The year 2019 marked a second turning point for AWPG with the acquisition of We Events, an influential digital marketing agency, and of the audiovisual production companies La Grosse Equipe and Enibas by Satisfaction.

La Grosse Equipe was created in 2005 by Thibaut Vales, Jeremy Michalak and Zumeo. It specialises in the creation of original formats for non-scripted and variety shows as well as Reality TV (Les Anges, Friends Trip…).

Enibas is a global media production company created in April 2008 by Nicolas Hélias and Frédéric Francès (Météo à la Carte, Tout Compte Fait…).

The group is constantly evolving with the creation of new subsidiaries and activities. The Ma Génération company has since late 2017 been running the Wada7 project, the leading social media for Arab youth which boasts more than 12 million subscribers around the world.

ALEF ONE is an independent production company founded in 2018 by Nora Melhli and Arthur Essebag. ALEF ONE develops and produces series and films for French and international markets.

July 2020 marks a new stage in the growth of Satisfaction Group with the acquisition of the French operations of Sony Pictures Television; Sony Pictures Television France and Starling. These companies specialise in the production of game and entertainment programs for TF1, France Télévisions and M6 with emblematic shows such as “The Newlywed Game”, “Brainiest”, Who wants to be a millionaire?”, “Dragon’s Den”

At the same time, Satisfaction The Television Agency partnered with Sony Pictures Television to benefit from the exclusive access to its catalogue of non scriptedformats in France, and internationally from the power of its distribution network to export its formats.

STAGE:

Arthur started his stage career in 2005, with Arthur en Vrai, a self-penned one-man show directed by Isabelle Nanty. The show was enjoyed by more than 100,000 spectators as it toured across France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.

A new theatrical adventure began in 2007 when he revived the role of Pierre Brochant opposite Dany Boon in Francis Veber’s iconic play Le Diner de Cons. The play was seen by more than 180,000 people in Paris.

A second one-man show, iShow, written and played by Arthur and directed by Josée Forestier, was born in September 2008 and continued until November 2011.

AW produced Arthur en Vrai and the iShow and co-produced, along with Juste pour Rire, the sexy cabaret-circus and rock show La Clique.

Fred Bauer, through his company Manolou, brought his talent and artistic skills to strengthen AW’s entertainment division in 2011. Together they produced a host of shows:

Crazy: a one-woman show played by Claudia Tagbo, directed by Fabrice Eboué, written by Claudia Tagbo and Fabrice Eboué.

Comment épouser un milliardaire: a one-woman show written, performed and directed by Audrey Vernon.

Marx et Jenny: a one-woman show written, performed and directed by Audrey Vernon.

Amour sur Place ou à Emporter: played by Noom Diawara and Amelle Chahbi, written by Amelle Chahbi, Noom Diawara and Fabrice Eboué, directed by Fabrice Eboué.

Tout public…ou Pas: a one-man show written by Florent Peyre, and directed by Clair Jaz.

1ère Consultation: a one-man show played by Issa Doumbia, directed by Papy, and written by Kakoumbe.

Mytho: a one-woman show played by Ariane Brodier, directed by Jarry.

Since 2018, AW has been the sole producer of the following:

Lucky: a one-woman show played by Claudia Tagbo, directed by Marie Guibourt, written by Claudia Tagbo, Grand Ghana and Marie Guibourt.

1ère Consultation: a one-man show by Issa Doumbia, directed by Papy and written by Kakoumbe.

One: a one-man show by Cartman, directed by David Salles, written by Cartman and Julien Schmidt.

Inclassable: a one-man show by Tony Saint Laurent, directed by Cecile Sellam and written by Tony Saint Laurent.

Gus Illusioniste: a magic show directed by Gus and Clément Naslin.

FILM:

Arthur in 2006 founded Serenity Films Company, which went on to produce the following films:

Cyprien in 2008, starring Elie Semoun, Catherine Deneuve, Léa Drucker, Laurent Stocker, Vincent Desagnat, directed by David Charhon, written by Elie Semoun, Romain Lévy and Benjamin Guedj (released 02/25/2008).

Les Tuche in 2010, co-produced with Pathé and Eskwad, starring Jean-Paul Rouve, Isabelle Nanty, Claire Nadeau, directed by Olivier Baroux, script by Philippe Mechelen, dialogue by Chantal Lauby (released 07/01/2011).

In the US, via the Vendôme Investments company, Arthur produced Source Code, directed by Duncan Jones, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan (released 03/11/2011), and Larry Crowne written, directed and played by Tom Hanks, with Julia Roberts and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (released 06/27/2011).