The Week at MIPCOM

Not even concerns about the eurozone could dampen the overriding feeling of optimism at MIPCOM this year, as some 12,500 attendees enjoyed the cloud-free skies (but moaned about the sweltering heat!) as they talked linear and digital deals, co-productions, formats and more.

The big theme appeared to be how over-the-top, Internet-delivered content is strengthening, not weakening, the television business. Mike Lang, the CEO of Miramax, told MIPCOM attendees in his packed Monday keynote that digital deals with the likes of Hulu and Netflix have been at the center of the studio’s strategy in its second incarnation, following its sale by Disney last year. “Innovate or die,” has been Miramax’s approach, Lang said.

Speaking with World Screen immediately following his keynote, Lang also stressed the importance of the international market as the company looks to exploit its valuable 700-title plus library. "International has been a very small part of the Miramax business—something like less than 20 percent of our revenue. My goal is for it to be 50 to 70 percent within three years.”

Lang’s Media Mastermind keynote included a Q&A session with Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer at Netflix and a man that almost every content owner at the market wanted to meet.

Expanding across Latin America and said to be gearing up to take its streaming service to Europe, Netflix was busy striking deals with international players both before and during MIPCOM. After scoring Beta Film’s Borgia, Netflix last week picked up the Norwegian drama Lilyhammer starring Stevie van Zandt and sold by SevenOne International. Van Zandt, best known on TV for his role in The Sopranos, thinks Netflix is the perfect broadcast platform for the show in the Americas, and he believes more and more digital services will pop up in the years to come. "In the next five years you’re going to be seeing a lot of new broadcasters appearing, especially in the digital world,” he told World Screen. “There will be between one and ten shows that will be the identity of that company, and that’s where it gets interesting. In this case, Netflix is a little bit ahead of everyone else. Saying, yeah we’re the most successful company at doing this other thing, but we’re going to see a day when we’re going to need some strengthening of our identity, and what a wonderful way to do it…. It’s an exciting time for us content creators."

Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks, and president of Disney/ABC Television Group, in her Wednesday keynote, also emphasized the myriad opportunities for content owners today. “Television has been unleashed,” Sweeney said in her presentation before sitting down for a Q&A with World Screen’s Anna Carugati. “We’ve taken TV out of the box, and set it free to be so much more…. We’ve created the opportunity to define our own destiny, and to build businesses that are…more profitable than we ever imagined. The future of television is unknown, because its potential is now unlimited.”

Sweeney told MIPCOM attendees about how Disney-owned assets, including ABC, have been using digital media to grow their audiences. Other broadcasters worldwide are taking a similar route. In a session immediately following Sweeney’s keynote, four leading programmers participated in a session, also moderated by Carugati, about windowing, programming strategies and digital-media deals. The Acquisition Superpanel—What Do Buyers Want? session with CTV’s Mike Cosentino, Sky’s Sarah Wright, Channel 5’s Jeff Ford and Televisa’s Carlos Sandoval was capped off with the presentation of the inaugural World Screen Content Trendsetter Award in partnership with MIPCOM.

The four programmers were presented with the accolade by Carugati and Reed MIDEM’s television division director, Laurine Garaude. “We’re absolutely delighted to be partnering with our friends at World Screen for this award,” said Garaude. “It means a great deal to us because it’s a chance to recognize the contributions, the achievements of people so key to this industry and whose decisions and choices impact the content that millions of people around the world watch.”

While the role of digital was certainly on both buyers’ and sellers’ minds, at the end of the day it was traditional linear deals that dominated the headlines. And distributors pulled out all the stops to make sure their titles made an impact. Entertainment One Television and Endemol Worldwide Distribution brought to Cannes several cast members of the new AMC show Hell on Wheels, including Anson Mount, Colm Meaney and Dominique McElligott. The three stars spent some time with World Screen on Sunday to talk about the show, set in post-Civil War America. Also on hand with eOne was Lukas Reiter, executive producer of The Firm. The show, slated to air on NBC, Global and AXN worldwide, will be much more than a standard legal drama, Reiter told World Screen. "All that people love about what [John Grisham] does so well is very much in the DNA of the show," Reiter said of the series, which continues the story that began in the acclaimed Grisham novel. "It is a legal drama but it’s also a legal thriller."

Also on hand in Cannes were cast members and exec producers of Missing, the new ABC Studios drama starring Ashley Judd. Exec producers Gina Matthews and Grant Scharbo said in Cannes that they are intent on making “television for the world” with the series, which Disney Media Distribution has licensed into more than 80 territories. “We wanted to give American audiences a glimpse into locations they don’t often see on American television,” said Scharbo, noting on-location filming in such far-flung locations as Prague and Istanbul. “At the same time we wanted to give global audiences a big American show in their own backyard."

Drama in general appeared to be a hot commodity at the market. Cineflix notched up several deals on its new drama Copper. ZDF Enterprises clinched new deals on The Killing and sold the new Scandi series The Bridge and Sebastian Bergman to BBC Four. FremantleMedia Enterprises shored up slots for its first U.S. scripted series, The Wedding Band, and unveiled two new projects: Universal Soldier and Blood & Treasure. ITV Studios Global Entertainment signed deals in more than 30 territories for NBC’s new Prime Suspect. Entertainment One signed a pact with Viasat on The Firm. BBC Worldwide sold its new drama Parade’s End to Nine Network. And Shaftesbury clinched an agreement to get The Listener back into the U.S. market, on ION Television.

You can read all these stories, and more, on WorldScreen.com.