Ted Baracos Talks MIP Cancun

CANCUN: Ted Baracos, the director of market development at Reed MIDEM, tells World Screen about some of the highlights of this month’s MIP Cancun Latin American market and summit.

From November 16 to 18, about 450 distribution and acquisition executives will convene at the Grand Fiesta Americana Hotel in Cancun for the third annual MIP Cancun market. The distribution marketplace was established to allow content owners to have one-to-one meetings with Latin American buyers.

The idea came out of research that organizer Reed MIDEM had conducted, surveying its clients about what they needed to grow their businesses. The geographical area that distributors were most interested in gaining more access to was Latin America. MIP Cancun started as a small event in 2013, with just 50 distributors and 50 buyers. This year, more than 130 buyers from across the region are slated to be on site to meet with the 160-plus distribution executives attending.

The event has expanded because “people love the format,” explains Ted Baracos, the director of market development at Reed MIDEM. “We doubled the second year. We’ve grown by more than 70 percent this year. All the major players from Latin America are participating.”

Given that the format works, Baracos says that Reed MIDEM does not see MIP Cancun becoming “a huge, huge event. We want to keep it on a [manageable] scale.”

The organizers have, however, expanded the conference portion with the Creative and Digital Minds Summit, featuring discussions on the digital revolution in the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets and sessions with heads of programming and content development, creators and showrunners.

The lineup of keynotes includes Manuel Abud, the president and CEO of Azteca America; Jon Zepp, the head of content partnerships at YouTube Americas; and Cris Abrego, co-chairman of Endemol Shine Americas and co-CEO of Endemol Shine North America. There will also be a View from the Top Superpanel featuring Joshua Mintz, deputy to the president of TV Azteca; Laurens Drillich, the president of Endemol Shine Latino; Tomas Yankelevich, the content and international business director at Telefe; Anna Gordon, executive VP and managing director for Latin America at BBC Worldwide; and Eduardo Lebrija, the senior VP and general director for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean at Viacom International Media Networks.

The schedule also includes networking events, screenings, panels on subjects such as financing and co-productions, and a MIPFormats Pitch.