Event Review: NATPE

MIAMI: World Screen Newsflash recaps the deals, panels and parties that made news at NATPE this week.

The forecast from Miami is sunny, both for the weather and the content industry as a whole. The Fontainebleau, which played home to NATPE for a second year, was abuzz with smiling attendees eager to do business (and relieved that this time they could actually get to their meetings). 

“I’m overjoyed, because most of the people that I’ve talked to are overjoyed,” said Rick Feldman, the president and CEO of NATPE, at an event wrap-up for the press. “For the most part we are very happy, very excited. The weather was great, the traffic was great, the people were great.”

Indeed, the elevator woes that loomed large at last year’s event were dealt with, in large part, this year by delegating additional space outside the suites of the Tresor Tower. “The thing we were most nervous about [for this year] was the understanding that we had to change the configuration from last year,” Feldman explained. “We understand that when people can’t get to where they want to go, it’s money. Meetings are money and people come here to meet. We knew that the first thing we had to do was make sure that the elevator problem was almost completely ameliorated. To a large degree, we did that.”

Though no official attendance figures have been released, Feldman said the event was pacing to be approximately 10-percent ahead of last year. “We will be north of 5,000,” he affirmed, but could not give an actual number for an increase in international attendees. “Here’s what’s important, when I went to see the sellers, everyone said that the people they wanted to see were here.”

A particular highlight was the number of celebrities who descended on Miami to plug their projects. Among them, Katie Couric and Jeff Zucker made the rounds to promote the new talk show Katie. A number of novela stars were spotted, including Blanca Soto—star of Univision’s Eva Luna and the new production El Talisman—who sat down with TV Latina’s Rafael Blanco for a Coffee With session about the strength of the telenovela genre.

Also adding star power to NATPE was Charlie Sheen, who came to promote his upcoming show Anger Management. Sheen was the guest of honor at an invite-only Lionsgate/Debmar-Mercury party thrown at the Arkadia nightclub at the Fontainebleau. Couric, Survivor host Jeff Probst, Ricki Lake and Steve Harvey all came out to the event Monday night, where there were girls dressed as mermaids in the pool and others dressed as tables holding drinks around the bar area.

The promotional efforts paid off for Sheen, as Anger Management was sold this week as part of an exclusive deal between Lionsgate-TISA International and Turner Broadcasting System Latin America (TBSLA).

Lionsgate had other big news at the market this week, announcing a new production venture with Televisa. Building on their 2010 partnership that established Pantelion, a joint venture geared toward Hispanic movie-goers in the U.S., the two have now aligned to co-produce, co-finance, develop and produce English-language TV product for the U.S. market. Separately, Televisa unveiled a new partnership with Sony Pictures Television in which the two will have a first look at scripted and telenovela formats for potential co-production. Televisa is also working with Nickelodeon on an original one-hour U.S. adaptation of the hit Mexican telenovela Reach for a Star (Alcanzar una Estrella) for Nick at Nite.

The other big news this week was the announcement of a new player in the U.S. Hispanic media landscape, with Fox International Channels aligning with Colombia’s RCN Television Group for the launch of MundoFox. Emilio Romano, the president of Telemundo Media, addressed this new competitor in his One-on-One session with World Screen’s Anna Carugati. He said he not only welcomes the competition, but is also encouraged that it “validates our industry. The fact that such powerful companies are coming into the market shows that they know that this is a market that has huge growth potential.”

The week was a busy one for Telemundo, which announced several agreements. Telemundo Studios formed a deal with Argos Television for the production of series and novelas in Mexico, while its sister company, Telemundo International, signed distribution pacts with Mexican and Venezuelan broadcasters.

Meanwhile, the Cisneros Group of Companies and China Central Television (CCTV) entered a deal to exchange documentaries, with Venevision International to supply CCTV Documentary Channel with content for its new Latin Week programming event. Adriana Cisneros, the vice chairman and director of strategy for the Cisneros Group of Companies, said in her One-on-One session, also with Carugati, that China is a growing part of the company’s strategy and has been for some time. Cisneros focused largely in her session on the importance of interactivity in programming. She told the crowd that it’s not just about integrating social media, but also creating content that’s very specifically designed for interactivity.

Digital was certainly a hot topic in many of the NATPE sessions and keynotes, and remains top of mind across the content industry. While online video, new connected and mobile devices and greater interactivity through social media continue to shake things up, many still stand firm with the much-bandied-about sentiment that “content is king.”

“NATPE’s moniker of ‘content first’ continues to resonate,” said Feldman in his opening remarks on the first day of the market. “Strong media brands in the global world continue to produce assets which more and more are enhanced by methods of engagement that create greater context for the viewers, resulting in increased audience attention.

“Competition will continue to increase between the legacy brands—as Yahoo!, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, et cetera, build their content businesses. NATPE is well positioned to be that place where all content-producing media companies, old and new, can come to meet and do business.”

The event will again be held at the Fontainebleau in 2013, with an option for 2014. “Next year’s conference will be number 50,” said Feldman, “and we plan to make it special.”