Record Attendance at Abidjan Edition of DISCOP Africa

LOS ANGELES: A record number of participants attended DISCOP Africa in Abidjan last week, with event organizer Basic Lead reporting 1,142 delegates from 534 companies.

The three-day market wrapped up on Thursday in the Ivory Coast. It included 121 international programming suppliers, 183 independent producers and 221 content and adaptation rights buyers.

The event marked the first edition of The Television Summit, an initiative launched by Ivory Coast Minister of Communications Affoussiata Bamba to discuss strategies to shape and build a sustainable, regulated and self-sufficient content production and distribution environment to service Francophone Africa. Ivory Coast Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan, other key government leaders, regulating bodies, trade associations and senior corporate executives from Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gabon, Mali and Togo also took part in the summit.

Further highlights included a gala dinner hosted by Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Communications honoring Turkey; a pitching competition featuring TV series, formats, animation, documentary and web projects; a training component designed to help independent producers navigate the contours of content development and funding; numerous presentations and cocktail parties; as well as Meet Your Stars, a promotional program raising the level of interest for upcoming shows among industry influencers.

The fall edition of DISCOP Africa will take place in Johannesburg from November 2 to 4.

DISCOP founder and director Patrick Zuchowicki Jucaud commented: “This is almost double the number of participants as last year’s event, arriving from 63 countries versus 52 in 2015.”

He added: “Francophone Africa is rapidly establishing itself as one of the last remaining potentially lucrative television marketplaces, one that is bound by a common language, the same currency and similar cultural backgrounds, and with local economies expected to grow by an average of 6 percent between now and 2020.”