Laurine Garaude Talks MIPTV Highlights

PARIS: The ways in which Millennials and their content consumption habits have dramatically transformed the media business will take center stage at MIPTV next month.

Attendance is expected to be up at more than 11,000 participants, according to Laurine Garaude, director of the television division at Reed MIDEM.

“Creativity and innovation are at the heart of this year’s MIPTV,” Garaude says. “There’s a major focus on content development in terms of co-production, new producers to watch, new projects, and of course online originals. The theme is the Millennial Shift—no matter the genre or the country, everyone needs to adapt their business models and content to the expectations and the habits of the youngest generations.”

There are more than 1,600 companies exhibiting at the show this year, Garaude says, including a number of new exhibitors, such as Dailymotion, Rooster Teeth and Zoomin TV, among other digital media companies. There are also new pavilions, including one from Poland and another from the Nordic countries. The markets of Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway will be spotlighted throughout the weeklong Nordic focus, where the four countries have grouped together for the first time, Garaude notes, exploring everything from their expertise and creativity in drama to innovative formats, new technologies and kids’ fare.

Another key conference strand is Drama at MIPTV, which will include a closed-door co-production summit that has more than 80 senior-level decision-makers participating—and a waiting list of more execs who want to attend, Garaude says. Drama at MIPTV will also feature a focus on scripted formats, including speakers from Turkey, Korea and Israel and presentations from broadcasters about their editorial strategies and co-production opportunities in the year ahead.

Junior at MIPTV returns this year with a Future of Kids TV summit—featuring, among others, YouTube’s Malik Ducard—online original video screenings and matchmaking sessions.

The Digital Fronts are also returning for a second edition following a positive debut outing in 2014. “They were launched to create a bridge between online video and the broader TV ecosystem,” Garaude says. Founding partners YouTube, Maker Studios, Dailymotion and VICE will be on site to showcase their originals, alongside the likes of Collective Digital Studios, Machinima, Screen Australia and AwesomenessTV—whose founder, Brian Robbins, will receive the Pioneer Prize at the International Digital Emmy Awards on MIPTV’s opening night.

MIPTV has also lined up an array of keynote speakers, among them Sky’s Jeremy Darroch, Havas’s Yannick Bolloré and Modern Family’s Steve Levitan. Also on the agenda, talking about his headline-making HBO series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, will be Andrew Jarecki.

Screenings are another key component of the show this year, Garaude says. There’s the World Premiere Screening of ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s Texas Rising. Cast members Olivier Martinez, Ray Liotta and Bill Paxton, together with director Roland Joffé, will be on hand to introduce the HISTORY event series to the global content community. Other screenings include Versailles, from Zodiak Rights, France; Deadline Gallipoli, from Foxtel, Australia; and Follow the Money, from DR Fiktion in Denmark.