Los Angeles & London – GroupM, the world’s leading media investment group, announced the launch of Motion Content Group (Motion), a new global content investment and rights management company, to meet the ever-growing market demand for new economic models for premium content across the entertainment and media marketplace.

Motion will invest and partner with the world’s leading talent, producers and distributors to fund, develop, produce and distribute premium content. It will also consolidate and diversify GroupM’s content investments and operations to-date, as well as utilise GroupM’s & WPP’s worldwide network of relationships and content expertise for scale and competitive advantage.

Motion also supports WPP’s ongoing strategic focus and investments into content, which has seen notable strategic investments into companies such as Imagine Entertainment , The Weinstein Company , Media Rights Capital , MediaPro and All Def Digital, Russell Simmons’ digital venture.

Richard Foster, currently the head of GroupM Entertainment, has been appointed CEO of Motion Content Group, which will be headquartered in London and Los Angeles. Motion incorporates GroupM Entertainment’s team and resources, and the full slate of programs it has partnered to develop and produce.

Award-winning content funded by GroupM Entertainment has been distributed into markets around the world through partnerships with over 100 leading producers and more than 20 of the world’s leading distribution companies. Motion invests its own funds into content deals and partnerships and is therefore a separate but complimentary offering to the substantial amount of branded content work undertaken by GroupM’s agencies on behalf of their clients.

Motion’s global reach, investments and partnerships will help support the editorial ambitions and commercial requirements of producers, networks and platforms, in order to help drive contextually safe, high-quality environments for advertisers.