Viewpoint: Hosting The New Golden Age of TV

NEW YORK: Ahead of MIPCOM, Paul Zilk, the CEO of Reed MIDEM, shares his thoughts about changes in the entertainment industry.

Something big is changing in the entertainment industry. 

At this year’s MIPCOM, where some 13,000 delegates from over 100 countries will represent the increasing diversity of players operating in the entertainment ecosystem, be prepared for headlines that read “Cinema joins television and digital in golden age of television.”

In 2012, Kevin Spacey, Jane Campion and Harvey Weinstein crossed paths on the Croisette in Cannes. Only they were doing so not at the world famous Cannes Film Festival, but at the leading international television and digital event, MIPCOM.

Spacey came to promote Netflix’s $100 million House of Cards to international television buyers, while Academy Award-nominee Campion discussed her television drama debut Top of the Lake. Iconic film producer Harvey Weinstein made his first-ever MIPCOM appearance, telling his keynote audience that television is “such an exciting area at the moment and movies are shrinking to some extent. So it’s the right time for us to get into TV in a big way.”

These three appearances at MIPCOM signaled a major change: top executives, major companies and talent, more usually associated with cinema, are stepping forcefully into what many are now calling the “new golden age of television”—an age when demand for high-end TV drama, new sources of online financing and distribution and digital innovation are the order of the day.

Fast forward 12 months and the cinema community’s interest in the television sector is increasingly apparent at MIPCOM 2013.

MIPCOM’s Personality of the Year and keynote speaker, Jeffrey Katzenberg, has delivered a string of film hits at Disney, DreamWorks SKG and DreamWorks Animation (DWA), including the hugely popular Shrek franchise. Now he is fast-tracking DWA into television, with a commitment to produce hundreds of hours of original programming based on the studio’s animated films and the Classic Media library. In May, Katzenberg concluded negotiations to acquire YouTube-based, multi-channel AwesomenessTV.

Fellow MIPCOM keynoter, Ryan Kavanaugh, CEO of Relativity Media, heads a company with a track record in film production that includes The Social Network, Limitless and The Fighter. The next-generation studio, which incorporates unscripted production specialist Relativity Television (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), has recently expanded into scripted programming, initially targeting sitcoms, drama and sketch-comedy series.

With European television channels favoring high-end drama series such as Britain’s Downton Abbey, Germany’s Generation War or Denmark’s The Killing over prime-time film reruns and U.S. audiences accessing the likes of Mad Men, Band of Brothers, Homeland and House of Cards, television is increasingly being seen as the place for directors, writers and talent to tell their stories.

Kevin Spacey said at MIPCOM 2012, “When I look now, the most interesting plots, the most interesting characters, they are on TV.” Commenting on how relations between film and TV have changed recently, Spacey told his audience at last August’s Edinburgh Television Festival that film actors saw television as a “lost cause” some 15 years ago and that his agent would never have allowed him to accept a TV project after his 1999 Best Actor Oscar for American Beauty.

Top of the Lake executive producer Iain Canning, who produces film and television, reiterated Spacey’s message, saying, “There are no barriers between storytelling—epic stories can be told on television. If this is the golden age of television, I hope it continues and that we can play a part in that.”

Scandinavian film/TV producer Lars Bromgren—the man behind Danish/Swedish crime drama Bron (The Bridge)—is certainly playing his part in the golden age. At the 2013 Cannes Film Festival he noted, “A lot of creativity has moved over to TV,” adding that he now prefers what he called the “impressive” business atmosphere at MIPCOM to the Cannes film event. The latest remake of The Bridge is The Tunnel, an international co-production between Canal+, Sky Atlantic, Shine and Kudos Film & TV that will be unveiled internationally at the MIPCOM World Premiere TV Screening on October 7.

The growing diversity of the industry is reflected in this year’s keynote speaker lineup. In addition to Katzenberg and Kavanaugh, MIPCOM audiences will hear senior executives from Bravo and Style Media, FremantleMedia, Relativity Media, Amazon Studios, Zee, Facebook, MGM Television, Electus International, TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies. It’s a coming together of powerhouse television producers, film companies moving into television and digital playmakers.

MIPCOM 2013 is introducing a ‘New Legal Landscape’ program of conferences, workshops and one-on-one meetings. In partnership with the International Association of Entertainment Lawyers, this initiative will focus on the increasing complexity of and the skills needed to navigate today’s complex digital multiplatform landscape.

The digital world is creating pressure on traditional news, and news channels. With information now available instantaneously via the web, mobile phones and tablets, audience habits and access to news are quickly evolving. MIPCOM will explore the challenges facing news channels and see innovative ways to maintain audience loyalty and generate digital revenues.

With over 100 countries represented, MIPCOM continues to be the largest international event serving the television and digital sectors, and this year the spotlight turns on Argentina, MIPCOM’s Country of Honour.

“From Ushuaia in the south, to La Quiaca in the north, including the global production capital of Buenos Aires, Argentina stands apart in Latin America as a truly dynamic producer of television content for international markets,” notes Liliane Mazure, the president of the Argentine National Film Board (INCAA). “The MIPCOM focus on Argentina is a unique platform for international buyers, co-producers and distributors to discover the quality, vision and diversity of our content and original stories,” she added. The Argentina Country of Honour program includes content presentations, discussions on co-production funding incentives and location scouting.