The Tinopolis Group is an international TV production and distribution group with businesses based in the UK and US. It produces over 4,500 hours of television annually for more than 200 UK and foreign broadcasters.
History
Llanelli
Llanelli ("St Elli's Parish"; ) is a market town and the largest community in Carmarthenshire and the preserved county of Dyfed, Wales. It is located on the Loughor estuary north-west of Swansea and south-east of the county town, Carmarthen. ...
, Wales, became such a significant regional producer of tin that it was referred to as "Tinopolis" by the latter half of the 19th century.
Hence the parent company took this name when it was established there in 1990.
Tinopolis purchased The Television Corporation, the parent company of Sunset + Vine and Mentorn, in 2006.
Video Arts
Video Arts is a UK-based video production company which produces and sells soft-skills training programmes, e-learning courses and learning platforms. Video Arts also distributes third party titles. It was founded in 1972 by John Cleese, Sir ...
, the training media company, was founded in 1972 by comic
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...
, and since trained about 100,000 organisations in approximately 50 countries.
Video Arts was purchased by Tinopolis in 2007.
In 1988, writer and director Ed Thomas founded Fiction Factory, a company now part of Tinopolis.
Shares of Tinopolis plc were listed on London's
Alternative Investment Market
AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...
in 2005.
It was widely held by major institutions and purchased in 2008 for £44.7 million by management and
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
company
Vitruvian Partners
Vitruvian Partners is a European private equity firm focusing on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies.
Vitruvian invests throughout the UK and Europe and recently in China and India. The firm has offices in ...
, taking the company private again.
In late 2009 Tinopolis acquired Pioneer Productions, the leading factual producer.
During 2011 Tinopolis expanded its operations overseas through the acquisition of
A Smith & Co Productions in June 2011 and BASE Productions in August 2011
In 2014, Tinopolis acquired American non-scripted producer Magical Elves, producer of ''
Top Chef
''Top Chef'' is an American reality competition television series which premiered on Bravo on March 8, 2006. The show features chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges. The contestants are judged by a panel of professional chef ...
''.
The management of Tinopolis bought out their long standing investor Vitruvian Partners in October 2017.
Operations
Tinopolis has production centres in London, Los Angeles,
Llanelli
Llanelli ("St Elli's Parish"; ) is a market town and the largest community in Carmarthenshire and the preserved county of Dyfed, Wales. It is located on the Loughor estuary north-west of Swansea and south-east of the county town, Carmarthen. ...
, Glasgow and
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
.
See also
*
Media in Wales
The media in Wales provide services in both English and Welsh, and play a role in modern Welsh culture. BBC Wales began broadcasting in 1923 have helped to promote a form of standardised spoken Welsh,Davies (2008) p. 87 and one historian has ar ...
References
External links
Tinopolis– group website
Daybreak PicturesSunset + Vine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tinopolis
1990 establishments in Wales
British companies established in 1990
Mass media companies established in 1990
Mass media companies of Wales
Television in Wales
Television production companies of the United Kingdom
Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market
Privately held companies of Wales
Companies based in Carmarthenshire