The Week at MIPCOM

October 18, 2012 World Screen

NEW YORK: World Screen looks at some of the trends and topics that emerged from the busy week in Cannes.

 

If it weren’t for all the talk about over-the-top television, social media and apps at MIPCOM last week, you would have thought we were back in the heady days of late 2008. Four years ago, before the global economic downturn and the rapid changes in media consumption behavior had the television business feeling, for a time, like it was heading the way of the dinosaur, attendance at MIPCOM was at a record high of almost 13,600. The market came close to reaching that benchmark last week with some 12,900 media executives on site. Laurine Garaude, director of the television division at Reed MIDEM, called last week’s market “one of the biggest MIPCOMs in many years.”
 
It was also the most star-studded; celebrities on the Croisette included Kevin Spacey for Netflix’s House of Cards; Sarah Wayne Callies for the FOX International Channels and AMC co-pro The Walking Dead; Gillian Anderson for The Fall, a crime series distributed by Content Media and ZDF Enterprises; Matthew Macfadyen from BBC Worldwide’s Ripper Street; and NCIS’s Michael Weatherly. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys were on hand for the world premiere screening of FX’s The Americans. Anna Carugati, World Screen’s group editorial director, interviewed the actors about the new period drama, being sold worldwide by Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution. The talent contingent also included Niall Matter and Danny Rahim from Primeval: New World, which Entertainment One launched to the global market last week. They told me about how the show, slated to air on Space in Canada and Syfy in the U.S., among other outlets, is more action-driven and edgier than the British series it was spun off from.
 
It wasn’t just star talent generating headlines at the market—a slate of senior executives and creators took to the stage of the Grand Auditorium. Among them was Emilio Azcárraga, the chairman and CEO of Televisa and this year’s MIPCOM Personality of the Year. Following his keynote, which touched on emotional storytelling and the company’s business in the U.S., Azcárraga was joined on the stage of the Grand Auditorium by Carugati for a wide-ranging conversation about Televisa’s growth opportunities. You can watch that interview here. Another influential Latin American executive at MIPCOM this year was Adriana Cisneros de Griffin, the vice chairman and VP of strategy for the Cisneros Group of Companies. She discussed “the Latin American decade” in her presentation at the LATAM Global Dealmakers Networking Lunch and later sat down with Carugati to discuss how she is maximizing new digital opportunities at the company. You can watch that interview here.
 
The ways in which digital continues to transform the media business was a theme throughout the week and a major topic of conversation at the Acquisition Superpanel that wrapped the Wednesday conference schedule. Moderated by Carugati, the session saw Rogers’ Malcolm Dunlop, Channel 4’s Gill Hay, Network Ten’s Beverley McGarvey and TV 2 Norway’s John Ranelagh discussing the major challenges facing broadcasters today. You can watch that informative session here. At the end of the discussion, the four programmers received the second annual World Screen Content Trendsetter Award, presented in partnership with Reed MIDEM, for their accomplishments in spotting hit shows and building schedules that deliver both audiences and advertisers.
 
That certainly was the mandate for the 4,000-plus buyers wandering up and down the Palais searching for the hot new shows. And judging by the flurry of deal announcements, a number of broadcasters seem to have found what they were looking for. Lionsgate secured a British slot for Nashville with More4, which also picked up Disney Media Distribution’s Scandal. Warner Bros. announced an output deal with Canal+ and Starz Media inked a licensing agreement with HBO Nordic. Gaumont International Television arrived in Cannes with deals in place in France and Canada for the new NBC drama Hannibal.
 
European distributors also fared well, among them ZDF Enterprises across its diverse portfolio; Global Screen, which secured a host of drama deals; and BBC Worldwide, whose raft of announcements included a co-pro pact with Masterpiece.
 
On the digital-media front, Shaftesbury found a Canadian home for its new-media series Backpackers; and FremantleMedia Enterprises used its Monday morning press breakfast to announce a partnership with Vuguru. Also at that event, Cecile Frot-Coutaz, FremantleMedia’s new CEO, pointed to the challenges and opportunities presented by digital media. “This is a world where you need to be able to build brands,” she said. “It’s not just about TV shows anymore. It’s about building brands that cut through.” How content owners, and broadcasters, face that challenge will undoubtedly be a recurring theme as the international media business reconvenes in Cannes six months from now.


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