Event Preview: MIPCOM

NEW YORK: Laurine Garaude, director of the television division at Reed MIDEM, provides a look at what attendees can expect at MIPCOM next month.

Exhibition space is completely sold out for MIPCOM—and has been for some time now. There are more than 60 new stands, including pavilions from Portugal, Germany and this year’s Country of Honour, Turkey.

“We’re expecting upwards of 13,600 participants from over 110 countries, with 4,500 buyers,” Garaude says. “The number of SVOD and digital platforms [attending] continues to increase.”

The core theme for this year’s market is “A New Creative Excellence,” a trend Garaude sees taking place in every genre, most notably scripted.

“We all know the industry is in the midst of a large transformation. At the same time, we're all witnessing a strong creative trend. MIPCOM is going to explore this new creativity. There’s never been as much quality content in the world, coming from around the world. And there’s never been as much competition. So it’s important to be even more creative—in content-production values, in storytelling and in modes of distribution and business models.”

On tap for the four-day market and conference is a range of screenings—more than the market has ever hosted, Garaude says. In addition to the Monday night premiere of The Last Panthers, distributed by Sky Vision and STUDIOCANAL, and Tuesday’s premiere of The X-Files, distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution, there will be opportunities for attendees to see Crackle’s The Art of More—with star Dennis Quaid on hand for a Q&A session—Starz’s The Girlfriend Experience, Endemol Shine’s The Frankenstein Chronicles, CBS Studios’s Billions and more. There will also be a premiere at MIPJunior, with Zorro the Chronicles, and a screening of Seven and Me.

MIPCOM attendees will also get to see exclusive excerpts of War and Peace, BBC’s new adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy classic, during a keynote session featuring screenwriter Andrew Davies and Harvey Weinstein.

Another highlight Garaude mentions is the Social Responsibility strand of the conference program. Among the sessions will be Yann Arthus-Bertrand discussing his epic new documentary Human. In addition, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (Saving Face, Children of the Taliban) will discuss her socially conscious films.

A number of heavy hitters are lined up for Media Mastermind keynotes, among them ITV’s Adam Crozier—in conversation with World Screen’s Anna Carugati—Endemol Shine’s Sophie Turner Laing and American producer Mark Gordon. MIPCOM Personalities of the Year Gary Newman and Dana Walden, co-chairmen and CEOs of Fox Television Group—will deliver their keynote on Wednesday afternoon, also in conversation with Carugati. The Wednesday schedule also sees Reed MIDEM teaming with World Screen for the fifth year in a row to present the Content Trendsetter Awards. This year’s recipients are Modern Times Group’s Jakob Mejlhede, FOX International Channels’ Jason Simms, Amazon’s Jason Ropell, Viacom International Media Networks U.K.’s Katie Keenan and SVT’s Christian Wikander.

A new addition to MIPCOM this year is the Into the Stream strand exploring OTT programming strategies and digital-distribution business models, with speakers lined up from Fullscreen, Huffington Post, Discovery, AOL and more. And back for a second year is the Carriage Deals Forum, addressing the still expanding multichannel business worldwide. “We’re using the same software as we do for MIPCancun to provide sophisticated matchmaking opportunities between platforms and channels,” says Garaude.

There will be lots of sessions devoted to the Country of Honor, Turkey, and a Turkish-themed opening party in conjunction with TRT. Turkey will also be present at MIPJunior with a “Snack and Screen” session. Other highlights for the kids’ programming event include sessions with Amazon’s Tara Sorensen, Hasbro’s Stephen Davis and YouTube’s Malik Ducard. In addition, MIPJunior will feature the first-ever World Screen Kids’ Content Trendsetter Awards, presented in association with Reed MIDEM. The inaugural recipients, who will receive their awards on Sunday morning following the Acquisition Superpanel, are Nickelodeon’s Jules Borkent, Lagardere’s Caroline Cochaux, Turner Broadcasting’s Adina Pitt, Disney’s Karen K. Miller and KiKA’s Sebastian Debertin.

See the full MIPCOM schedule here.