Marie-Agnès Delaunay
Marie-Agnès Delaunay | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 5 August 1958 |
| Nationality | Gylian |
| Alma mater | University of Ḑarna |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | Founder of Magdel Group |
| Net worth |  Ŧ30 billion (2020) |
Marie-Agnès Delaunay (Gylic transcription: Mariagyne Deloné or Marianié Deloné; born 5 August 1958) is a Gylian media proprietor and businesswoman. She is the founder and president of the Magdel Group, whose properties include the newspapers L'Actualité and L'Commerçant, the publishing house Éditions Saga, the radio station Radio Courant, and the television channel 5, Gylias' most successful private television network.
One of Gylias' most famous media proprietors, Marie-Agnès is well-known for her cocky public image, portraying a "wicked" caricature of a media proprietor, laced with "playful French seductiveness", on her television channel. She is considered a highly influential figure in Gylian media, and her playfully self-promotional image and distinctive appearance have had an influence on Gylian pop culture.
Early life
Marie-Agnès Delaunay was born on 5 August 1958 in Louise-Michel, a planned community for resettled internally displaced persons now part of Riáona. Her parents worked as an electrician and an elevator attendant. She is of primarily French heritage, but has some Varan and Rezakan descent.
She uses two pronunciations of her name, the Gylian French [a'ɲɛ] and the closer to spelling pronunciation [aɡˈne], reflected in the alternate Gylic transcriptions Mariagyne and Marianié. She tends to use [ag'ne] in her business career, and [a'ɲɛ] more in private.
She was a member of the Revolutionary Youth Union in childhood and an avid reader. Her interest in writing was encouraged by her parents. In secondary school, she concluded she had no aptitude for fiction, and decided to become a journalist instead.
She attended the University of Ḑarna in 1976–1980, graduating with a degree in journalism. While there, she worked at the student newspaper. After graduating, she was briefly an apprentice at a local printer, where she learned about phototypesetting.
Career
Newspapers and publishing
Marie-Agnès worked as a reporter for The Riáona Post in the early 1980s. She later moved to the The National Record, working at its French edition L'Régistre Nationale. She gradually moved from reporting to an organisational role, working as a contributing editor, copy editor and proofreader.
She grew frustrated with mainly working as an English–French translator. Inspired by the francité movement, she envisioned a purely French-language national newspaper, and amicably left L'Régistre Nationale to pursue this project.
Marie-Agnès founded L'Actualité in 1984. L'Actualité had the most advanced production techniques of a Gylian newspaper at the time: it was produced on computers running desktop publishing software with WYSIWYG capabilities, and printed in full colour. It quickly became Gylias' most successful Francophone newspaper, and caused other newspapers to similarly convert to electronic production and colour printing.
The success of L'Actualité provided the foundation for Marie-Agnès' future plans. She founded the Magdel Group in 1986 to support her expansion. She established L'Commerçant that year, and the Éditions Saga publishing house in 1988.
Radio
Marie-Agnès founded Radio Courant in 1986, the Magdel Group's first venture beyond print. Replicating the formula of L'Actualité, the station gained popularity for its sophisticated station identification jingles, eclectic programming, and Francophone focus.
It was initially a regional station serving Ḑarna, and gradually expanded its coverage to Tomes, Aðuna, and Herlan, becoming a significant station in southern Gylias.
After the GNBS' monopoly on federal broadcasting ended in 1991, Radio Courant became a national radio network.
During the 1980s, Marie-Agnès occasionally served as a host, and her on-air presentation was initially more low-key. After she developed her public image fully in the 1990s, Radio Courant's presentation and her role were transformed to match her television persona.
Television
In 1990, the Magdel Group submitted a proposal for a private channel to the National Broadcasting Office, in preparation for the end of the GNBS' federal monopoly. The proposal was approved, and 5 (Cinq) began broadcasting on 1 January 1991. The name reflected Marie-Agnès' ambitions, playfully placing it after GTV4, and implicitly ahead of ATV.
Apart from becoming Gylias' largest Francophone channel, 5 distinguished itself through high production values. Its station identification and continuity were polished, and it organised its schedule into programming blocks, with distinctive atmospheres and framing devices just as accomplished as the shows they contained.
It became a major player in Francophone television production, producing much of its line-up in cooperation with other Gylian studios.
Marie-Agnès developed 5's brand in a very personalised manner, following Cecilia and Estelle Parker's hands-on example at GTV. She appeared in station identification and as an in-vision continuity announcer, and began hosting a weekly talk show, Conversations avec Marie-Agnès.
It was her work at 5 that brought her lasting national fame. Working with sizeable creative staff, she created a "wicked" persona, playing a tongue-in-cheek caricature of a media proprietor. Modelling herself after Remi Ďana, she appeared between programs instead of commercial breaks.
Her on-screen presence and announcements were laced with mischievous wit befitting a rezy anta and winking self-parody. She playfully teased viewers about her control of what 5 broadcast, portrayed herself as eager for media dominance, proclaimed her irresistible genius, and poked fun at some of the channel's material.
She and her staff filmed numerous idents and announcements for each programme as well as the channel as a whole.
5 quickly became Gylias' most popular private television network, a distinction it holds to this day, making Marie-Agnès a renowned media personality in the process. She later established several subsidiary digital television channels based on certain themes, such as 5néma (film programming), Mu5 (music programming), 5port (sports programming), Anima5 (animated programming), and 5voyage (documentaries about nature).
Other ventures
Marie-Agnès established Magdéo in 1992. It distributes compilations of 5's idents, both on home video and on NetStream.
She runs the Magduction production company, which serves as the main umbrella for her production work. A close friend of Saira Telyn, she has notably co-produced several French-language series by Dreamwave Productions, including Le recueil des faits improbables de Ryōko Yakushiji, Les Enfants Terrificques, and Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec.
She created the Marie-Agnès clothing line, which distributes reproductions of her trademark outfit, and a variety of merchandising after herself, including celebrity dolls, perfume fragrances, stationery, calendars, and photobooks.
She has also recorded the albums La Magnifique (1993), L'cadeau des déesses (1996), L'vie en riche (1999), and Reine (2004), which were produced by Susan Shelley. Inspired by the work of Sara Thomas, the albums featured Neo-Gylian Sound and city pop, contributed by famous guest musicians, and Marie-Agnès delivering comedic spoken word monologues playing up and poking fun at her persona.
She has guest starred as herself in various film and television shows, including some appearances in pornography, and has collaborated with musical acts, making spoken word guest appearances.
She was interviewed for Rasa Ḑeşéy's documentaries Our Clothes (2012) and Beloved Rascals (2017).
She is an investor in Polaris and The Pump, and a frequent participant in Tax Day ceremonies.
Public image
Marie-Agnès is one of Gylias' richest media figures, with an estimated net worth of Ŧ30 billion. She is a participant in the Social Partnership Program and has donated extensively to philanthropic endeavours and charities. Due to her contributions to its construction and maintenance, Riáona's Marie-Agnès Delaunay Arena is named after her.
Marie-Agnès is known for her "cocksure and cheeky" public image, and mischievous wit. A 1994 feature in Silhouette, "The Life and Times of a Cartoon Tycoon", described her as "the Remi Ďana of business". Gylias Review referred to her as "Asuka's closest competitor for embodying attractive cockiness." Her self-parodic self-promotion made her a national celebrity, and her persona has been often parodied and depicted in Gylian pop culture, particularly in nénédie.
She is considered a style icon for her distinctive outfit, consisting of a white shirt, brown waistcoat, skirt, and suit, and a red bow. She wears her long hair with two curled ringlets on the sides of her face, and bleaches it a light blue colour.
She lives with her family in a mansion in Riáona. The mansion is used as a family home, television studio for filming 5 idents, and is also used as a homeless shelter and site of an anarchist free school.
She jokingly calls herself a cinquante-huitaire ("58er"), noting the repetitive quality of her birthdate (5.8.58) and her birth in the year of Gylian independence. The number 58 often appears in her work or in reference to her.
Due to her public image, she famously lists her occupation as "being Marie-Agnès Delaunay" when completing census forms, and has done so since 1995.
Influence
Marie-Agnès has been described as a powerful figure in Gylias' media landscape. The Magdel Group attracts a substantial audience: L'Actualité and L'Commerçant together have a readership between 5 and 6 million, Radio Courant is Gylias' largest solely French language station, and 5 is its most popular private television network. In addition, Marie-Agnès' clothing line and merchandising has been notably successful and popular.
The Democrat wrote in 2008 that "Marie-Agnès possesses the power to shape public tastes, to influence the public opinion, and to boost careers. She has devoted much effort to using her media power to both strengthen the French element of Gylian public life and to promote her vision of French-ness to Gylians."
In an analysis of the contents of the Magdel group's newspapers and television network conducted in 2012, Surface found that "Marie-Agnès consistently promotes a broadly liberal vision that draws equally from Donatellism and Julieism, supports the PA–LU alliance, and exalts the conscription of wealth. She lampoons her wealth in her on-screen presence while engaging in extensive activities off-camera to maintain the public's trust."
Private life
Marie-Agnès is married polygamously to Eiko Doi and Charis Daskalakis. They have five children. Both of her spouses are invovled in the Magdel Group, Eiko as a manager at 5 and Charis as a producer at Radio Courant.
She is close friends with Catherine Baudelaire, Jeanette Moitessier, Amanda Leloup, Agathe Sanna, Saira Telyn, and Frauke Stark.
Marie-Agnès maintains a separation between her "cartoon tycoon" persona and private life, reflected in her use of her name's alternate pronunciations to "distinguish the character from the person". Outside of her media career, she maintains a low public profile and rarely gives interviews.
In a 2008 interview with The Independent Reader, she said: "I try to live a balanced life, and one thing I appreciate about our businesspeople is that they do so as well. I spend plenty of time with my family, I have spare time I put to good use, I have hobbies and interests and favourite music and art. This is one of the most important sources of strength we have."
She is an avid cyclist, travelling to work on her bicycle and cycling recreationally in her spare time.
She is mainly a practitioner of Concordianism and Gaulish polytheism.
Politically, she identifies as a Donatellist, and has said the people she most admires are Julie Legrand, Arlette Gaubert, and Rin Tōsaka. She is a member of OMFLG and ACFEN.