INTERNATIONAL www.VideoAge.org Content Europe, a new TV market set for April 21-23, 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal, was announced on August 22, 2025 by British trade publisher and TV market organizer C21. Eleven days later, on September 2, 2025, Brunico, the Canadian publishing group that also organizes NATPE Budapest, announced that its Hungarian TV market would move from the month of June to April. But on December 18, 2025, Brunico announced the “pausing” of NATPE Budapest due to a poor response to its April move. At the end of last month, Brunico also closed its U.S. TV markets, like NATPE Global, Realscreen Summit, and Kidscreen Summit. Then, on November 5, 2025, New York City market organizer Questex announced its first The L.A. Screenings 2026 schedules are set, and judging from the extended dates, this year, they promise more participants than previous years. Early indications of a good market came from the “Save the Dates” that studios sent to buyers as early Series Mania: A bird’s-eye view from Lille looking at content buyers A book explains the intense transformations in film and television Media connections between Trump, Venezuela, and Iran My 2¢: Digitalization is driving the cost of content creation to zero, but... Page 10 Page 8 Page 4 Page 3 THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF FILM, BROADCASTING, STREAMING, PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION April 2026 - VOL. 46 NO. 3 - $9.75 The Evolution of April as a European TV Market Date MIP London: A Great Confab, Not a Strong TV Mart L.A. Screenings: Extended and Expanded in 2026 (Continued on Page 12) (Continued on Page 16) (Continued on Page 14) The verdict is in: MIP London was a great TV conference event… and a less successful TV marketplace. This, of course, isn’t news to MIP London’s organizer, RX, which is said to be actively looking for remedies that, according to some, could consist of offering free accommodations to international content buyers beginning at least two days prior to the start of the London Screenings. The rationale here is simple. Since 700 or so TV buyers are al-
3 My 2¢ April 2026 MAIN OFFICES 216 EAST 75TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 TEL: (212) 288-3933 WWW.VIDEOAGEINTERNATIONAL.COM WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG VIALE ABRUZZI 30 20131 MILAN, ITALY EDITOR-in-CHIEF DOM SERAFINI EDITORIAL TEAM SARA ALESSI (NY) BILL BRIOUX (CANADA) ENZO CHIARULLO (ITALY) LEAH HOCHBAUM ROSNER (NY) SUSAN HORNIK (L.A.) CAROLINE INTERTAGLIA (FRANCE) OMAR MENDEZ (ARGENTINA) LUIS POLANCO (NY) MIKE REYNOLDS (L.A.) MARIA ZUPPELLO (BRAZIL) PUBLISHER MONICA GORGHETTO BUSINESS OFFICE LEN FINKEL LEGAL OFFICE STEVE SCHIFFMAN WEB MANAGER BRUNO MARRACINO DESIGN/LAYOUT CLAUDIO MATTIONI, CARMINE RASPAOLO © TV TRADE MEDIA INC. 2026 All of these issues were predictable and predicted. Two recent books, both, coincidentally, from Italy, are animating the international TV debate. One, Unbundling Entertainment, was written in English by Giovanni Pedde. The other, Gli scripted format (The Scripted Formats), was written in Italian by Maria Chiara Duranti. Pedde is a Rome, Italy-based former entertainment lawyer and ex-SVP of Paramount Global Distribution. His digital-only book (reviewed in this Issue) is selfpublished (U.S. $9.99). Duranti, a format expert, is a professor at the University of Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy. Her book has been published both in print and digitally by Carocci Editore of Rome, Italy (16 euro or U.S. $19). Duranti’s book makes the case for two types of formats: Scripted and non-scripted, with the former reserved for fiction (drama) and the latter for unscripted or “reality” TV shows. Both books describe their subjects’ histories well. Duranti credits the origin of format sales to Associated London Script, a company founded by Beryl Vertue, who licensed the first format — the BBC’s Hancock’s Half Hour — to Finland’s public TV network in 1960. However, Duranti doesn’t mention the fact that others have credited Italian-American Mike Bongiorno with doing it first, after he brought the American version of The 64,000 Question to Italian public TV in 1955 under the title of Lascia o Raddoppia? He also hosted the Italian version of the show. The international licensing of formats was initially easier to do for game and quiz shows, but later, both reality and drama formats began to be sold, as well, often under the term “remake.” Meanwhile, in his book, Pedde explains how vertical integration failed, how technology caused people’s tastes to change, the “terrible deals” that the U.S. studios made to sell Netflix their library material (and make its streaming service a viable competitor), and how the streaming wars triggered a brutal consolidation endgame based on a “scale or fail” imperative. Subsequently, Pedde argues that the entertainment industry is in the grip of two simultaneous, massive disruptions — the Internet with digitalization (which is driving the cost of distribution toward zero, circumventing the traditional middlemen), and generative AI (which is driving the cost of content creation toward zero). All of these issues were predictable and predicted. Nevertheless, entertainment executives went ahead with them, and now the sector is paying the price. It would be nice to have a picture (or a book) of what the solutions should be, other than the oft-cited suggestion of further consolidation. For Duranti, the challenge is less intense, but still important in view of Pedde’s review of entertainment’s massive disruptions (as he believes that digitalization brought the cost of content creation “toward zero”). Duranti believes that formats reduce the chance for failures (since the shows are already known to be successful elsewhere) and thus reduce costs. As for producers, distributors, and TV outlets, the cost of content is far from zero — it actually keeps escalating — and that is all the justification corporations need for consolidation. Dom Serafini Digitalization is driving the cost of content creation to zero and the format business reduces the cost of failure, but the cost of content is still escalating… which is the justification for mergers and acquisitions. It’s a mess out there! “Miss Radcliff, find something for me to do.”
4 (Continued on Page 6) that in order to avoid inflating the price in a bidding war, Cisneros invited Trump to his apartment for breakfast and, unfortunately, received him in a bathrobe. Offended by Cisneros’s attitude, Trump publicly declared that he would never let Cisneros purchase the Miss Universe brand, and indeed, the Miss Universe company went to Trump. (Today, the pageant is owned by the JKN group, which has offices in Thailand and New York.) In 1999, Venezuela transitioned from a center-left government to the revolutionary government of Hugo Chávez, originally supported by Cisneros himself. However, in 2002, Chávez accused him of fomenting a coup. After that, Cisneros’s relations with the government further deteriorated with the arrival of Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s successor, even though his Venevision TV network continued to broadcast, albeit under severe restrictions. (At the same time, the country’s other network, Radio Caracas Television, refused to cave in to the governments’ dictates, and in 2007 lost its license to broadcast over the airwaves, forcing it to switch to Internet-only operations.) Now on to the connection between Venezuela and Iran. One of Gustavo Cisneros Rendiles’s five brothers, Carlos Enrique Cisneros Rendiles (with Rendiles being his mother’s surname), was married to Iranian-born Shahla Mehbod, who was apparently related to the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi (although all genealogical references to Mehbod have been removed from public records). Still on the subject of Iran, from 1998 to 2003, the Trump Organization leased offices in New York to Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-owned banks. Despite the U.S. linking Bank Melli to terrorist groups and the Iranian nuclear program. Returning to the Cisneros clan, Carlos Enrique drowned On January 3, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump launched an offensive in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro. Then, 56 days later, on February 28, he launched an attack on Iran that led to the killing of dictator Ali Khamenei. While these nations are seemingly so distinct and distant from one another, there are some interesting media connections between them and Trump. We’ll explore them here. Let's Start with Venezuela. In 1996, Trump was interested in purchasing the itinerant Miss Universe beauty pageant brand from the American company ITT. At the same time, Gustavo Cisneros Rendiles (1945-2023), then patriarch of the family that owns Venevision (the country’s main TV network), whose company already owned the Miss Venezuela brand, also wanted to purchase the Miss Universe brand from ITT. The story goes Media Connections Between Trump, Venezuela, and Iran VIDEOAGE April 2026 World content 21-23 April 2026 Marriott Hotel • Lisbon A three-day market, conference and screenings connecting buyers and sellers around formats, factual, drama and kids www.contenteurope.net
A GLOBAL AGENCY ORIGINAL
6 (Continued From Page 4) and Optimum in the U.S., both controlled by French-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi). The video was subsequently donated to the MasticMoriches-Shirley Community Library (pictured above). In addition to celebrating “The Rise and Fall of the American Monoculture,” the Journal’s insert celebrates America’s cinemas, TV shows, videogames, theme parks, songs, pro (American) football, theater, writers, streaming services, and people who changed the course of American entertainment, including P.T. Barnum and his circus in 1835, and Julia Child, who brought cooking shows to television in the early 1960s. However, the Journal’s special section also reports that sound in films was initially shunned by studio heads because, in order for it to be adopted widely, that meant that sound studios and cinemas had to be wired, changing the industry’s economic structure. As for streaming, the section reports that RealNetwork pioneered streaming audio and video in 1995. The third of several special sections of The Wall Street Journal for America250, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from the U.K. and the world’s longest democracy, featured “Entertainment.” The 26-page insert came out on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, and was subtitled, “The story of the world’s greatest economy.” The celebration for America250 is taking place on July 4, 2026, throughout the U.S. and around the world, including (for the second time) Giulianova, in the Abruzzo re- gion of Italy, birthplace of VideoAge editor Dom Serafini, who was also involved in the celebration of America’s 200th anniversary in the U.S. In 1976, Serafini produced the only videotape of a Long Island, New York Fourth of July parade for Suffolk Cablevision (founded by Charles Dolan of HBO fame, and now part of Altice, known as Orange in France, Celebration of America250 Starts Early in 1983 at the age of 41 in the Amazon River while saving his 17-year-old son, Carlos Enrique Cisneros Mehbod, who later became Gustavo’s favorite nephew and, in 1995, CEO of the Cisneros Television Group, based in Caracas and Miami, Florida. During that period, Trump’s interests reconnected with those of the Cisneros family. In fact, in 1998, Carlos Enrique purchased the international rights to Playboy for $100 million, a purchase that proved ill-fated, as Carlos Enrique resigned in 2002 and committed suicide in Los Angeles in 2004. In 2000, Trump appeared in two Playboy video cameos that were reportedly sold internationally by Cisneros. Media Connections (Continued from Page 4) VIDEOAGE April 2026 World
8 A New Book Explains Why Film and TV Sectors are Experiencing Intense Transformations By Stephen Tague* At a time when the global motion picture and television ecosystem is undergoing one of the most profound structural transformations since the collapse of the classical studio system, Italian TV executive Giovanni A. Pedde, a former Paramount Global Distribution SVP and a former entertainment lawyer, delivers the self-published Unbundling Entertainment (331 pgs., U.S. $9.99), a work that is both panoramic in scope and unusually precise in execution. Few contemporary industry analyses attempt, let alone succeed, in holding together consolidation dynamics, platform economics, creator-driven models, decentralization, artificial intelligence, hybrid production paradigms, and the rapidly evolving legal framework within a single, coherent narrative. Even fewer manage to do so without collapsing into either techno-utopian speculation or nostalgic defense of legacy structures. Pedde avoids both traps. The result is a work that feels less like a manifesto and more like a strategic map. One drawn by someone who has operated inside the traditional system at a senior level, while simultaneously engaging with its emerging alternatives. One of the book’s most effective choices is its methodological structure. By organizing the analysis around eight key vectors — consolidation, gatekeepers, platforms, creators, decentralization, technology, hybrid, and law — Pedde provides readers with a navigational tool rather than a linear argument. The current transformation of the industry is not sequential. It is simultaneous, recursive, and often contradictory. Consolidation and fragmentation advance in parallel. Creative empowerment grows even as algorithmic gatekeeping intensifies. Costs of production fall while legal complexity explodes. Crucially, these eight key vectors (or categories) are not treated as silos. The book consistently shows how pressure in one domain (such as consolidation) reverberates across others, reshaping platform strategies, creator leverage, and regulatory responses. The early sections on consolidation and gatekeeping offer one of the clearest postmortems to date of the pre-pandemic studio ecosystem and its rapid destabilization. The theatrical window, once the immovable cornerstone of value creation, is examined not sentimentally but structurally. It reveals how manufactured scarcity functioned as an economic engine. Ultimately, it is proving brittle under digital pressure. Where the book gains further momentum is in its examination of platforms and creators, not as abstract forces, but as reconfigured studios. The rise of creator-led production ecosystems is not framed as a cultural footnote or youth-market anomaly, but as a structural inversion of traditional power flows. By treating creators as vertically integrated entities, controlling IP, audience relationships, and increasingly, distribution, the book forces legacy executives to confront an uncomfortable truth. The center of gravity has shifted, even if their balance sheets haven’t yet turned red. This is not a celebratory analysis. Pedde is careful to document the fragilities of the creator economy, the asymmetries of platform control, and the illusion of autonomy that often masks new forms of dependency. The sections on decentralization and artificial intelligence (AI) are among the most disciplined treatments currently available to industry professionals. Rather than presenting blockchain or generative AI as silver bullets, the book situates them as infrastructure layers. These are capable of re-architecting ownership, attribution, and participation, but only within realistic economic and regulatory constraints. The concept of the “hybrid” emerges here as the book’s intellectual fulcrum. Hybrid is not described as a transitional phase, but as a permanent condition. Centralized and decentralized models coexisting. Human creativity augmented rather than replaced. Legacy institutions adapting unevenly rather than disappearing. For executives navigating investment, production, or regulatory strategy, this framing is particularly valuable. It resists the false binary between old and new. Instead, it offers a model of coexistence, tension, and selective convergence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the author’s legal background, the final sections on regulation and law elevate the entire work. Rather than treating legal frameworks as constraints imposed from outside the industry, the book positions them as architectural forces. These will actively shape creative and economic outcomes. The analysis of AI regulation, authorship, digital identity, and on-chain governance is rigorous without becoming doctrinal. For practitioners operating across jurisdictions, particularly in Europe, this section alone functions as an essential briefing document. The inclusion of a comprehensive glossary further reinforces the book’s practical ambition. In an environment saturated with jargon and rapidly evolving terminology, this “user guide” quality significantly enhances the work’s long-term usefulness. Unbundling Entertainment does not claim to predict the future. Its value lies elsewhere: in clarifying the forces already in motion, exposing their interdependencies, and offering professionals a structured way to think about strategic adaptation. For those of us who have managed distribution, negotiated windows, navigated regulatory fragmentation, and witnessed the erosion of long-standing certainties, this book reads less like disruption theory and more like recognition. *Stephen Tague is a London-based media executive with his own advisory company — Asparagus Enterprises. He is the former EVP of CBS Studios International based in London, where his responsibilities included distribution, production, and channel management. Before CBS Studios International, he had a variety of roles with Paramount Pictures, Viacom, ITV, and BBC. VIDEOAGE April 2026 Book Review
1964 “Screenings” 1978 “May Screenings” The L.A. Screenings Evolution In the beginning... 1983... a new name! www.videoageinternational.net/l-a-screenings-2020/history-of-l-a-screenings/ 2002
10 The TV Event Is All About Elusive Buyers, But Content Companies Exhibit Happily Ultimately, what was predicted in VideoAge’s February Issue became what we are now able to report in this story about the 16th annual Series Mania Forum, if only with more facts and figures. Series Mania took place in the city of Lille, France, and was divided between a TV festival (that is open to the public) and a business TV event, or Forum, for professionals only, which offered both panels and a market. The Festival portion started on March 20, 2026, and ended on March 27, while the Forum started on March 24 and ended on March 26. According to official figures, the Forum was attended by 5,200 professionals from 75 countries, which makes it (and the Festival, which drew 112,000 attendees) the undisputed winner among the now numerous TV series events around the world, including Canneseries, to be held in the South of France April 23-28, 2026, and the Italian Global Series Festival, set to begin on July 3, 2026, in Rimini, Italy. However, despite the large total number of Forum participants, the number of actual buyers — estimated at 500 — was difficult to ascertain even by the exhibiting companies themselves since the Forum’s database didn’t provide a complete list of acquisition executives in attendance. Nonetheless, an envious 97 exhibiting companies from 16 countries spread across three levels of the Grand Palais — the Lille Convention Center — participated at the Forum with stands, meeting tables, and pavilions. Forty companies opted for meeting tables, which make the market relatively inexpensive to attend, compared to participation with a stand (which can reach upwards of $40,000 all included). Pavilions included the KOCCA Korean pavilion (with South Korea being this year’s Series Mania country of honor), Spain Audiovisual, Creative Europe Media, Quebec Creatif, and Screen Ireland, in addition to those from Belgium, Turkey, Taiwan, and Canada, among others. KOCCA’s presence at the Forum generated a press release from Manchester, England-based consultant specialist K7 Media that stated that “the U.K. is closing in on South Korea’s position as the world’s leading exporter of scripted TV formats,” reporting that even though “South Korea remains the top originator globally, with 19 adaptations launched between July 2024 and December 2025, the U.K. is now just two sales behind on 17, significantly narrowing the gap on the market leader.” In addition to distributors exhibiting at meeting tables and pavilions, large distribution companies had dedicated stands on the fourth floor of the Palais. These included BBC Studios, Fox Entertainment, Fremantle, Inter Medya, Studiocanal, Banijay, Beta Film, Gaumont, Federation, France TV, ITV Studios, Mediawan, Movistar, Studio TF1, The Mediapro, UGC, and ZDF Studios. The largest chunk of Forum participants was composed, once again, of producers and co-producers with drama projects in development, who were looking for partners and networking opportunities. In fact, one of the biggest draws of Series Mania Forum is its consistent focus on drama, which sets it apart from other, similar events. The conference segment of the Forum kicked off on day one with a panel titled “Key Trends in TV and VoD Markets,” which explored the latest data on TV series commissioning in Europe. The presentation highlighted a decrease in streamers’ investments in U.S. series and an increase in investments in European series, despite an overall reversal in the trend in the total number of commissioned series. Other panels throughout the event explored a wide range of industry topics, from microdramas to the marketing of TV series, to producing for less, in addition to showcases, previews, and keynotes from HBO Max’s Sarah Aubrey (who announced a first-look deal with Domingo Corral, former Content director at Movistar Plus+) and Disney+ EMEA’s Angela Jain. The traditional Co-Pro Pitching sessions were also held on the first day of the Forum, with 16 projects competing for a 50,000 euro prize. The award went to the 10-part drama series Red Pants from Kyrgyzstan. The project is co-produced by Erke Dzhumakmatova for Studio Oymo and Pavel Feldman and Alexander Seliverstov for Human Films. At the awards ceremony, held at the Theatre Barriere, the winner of the second edition of the Series Mania Buyers Upfront was also announced: France’s thriller R91 from SND Groupe M6/Next Episode. NRK Drama chief Marianne Furevold-Boland received Series Mania’s Woman in Series Award. In terms of sales activity, most exhibitors registered a good number of meetings. U.S.- based consultant Gary Marenzi of Marenzi & Associates, a returning participant of the Forum, found it useful to connect with French and European buyers and commissioning editors in a more relaxed environment compared to MIPCOM. The same feeling was shared by Italy-based Margherita Zocaro of Rai Com, who set up appointments with all the Western and Eastern European buyers that she wanted to meet with, but that she usually doesn’t see at other events. Forum participants also had a chance to mingle and network at several social events, including the welcome drinks, a daily happy hour at the Chamber of Commerce venue, the late-night party at Tripostal, as well as multiple invitation-only lunches, breakfasts, and cocktail parties. Inter Medya’s Hasret Ozcan and Sinem Aliskan Unifrance’s Gilles Pelisson, Series Mania’s Laurence Herszberg, and Series Mania Forum’s Francesco Capurro VIDEOAGE April 2026 Series Mania Forum Report
12th-15th October Palais des Festivals, Cannes. More information www.mipcom.com STORIES SHAPED GLOBALLY. OPPORTUNITIES BUILT TOGETHER. WHERE DEALS ARE DONE, PARTNERSHIPS ARE BORN AND STORIES FIND THEIR STAGE.
12 (Continued from Cover) Stream TV Europe, to take place April 13-15, 2026 at the Epic Sana Hotel in the Amoreiras district of Lisbon, Portugal. By mid-March 2026, it had already secured 43 exhibition companies, including the Los Angeles-based ACI and Vision Films, as well as Turkey’s Inter Medya. The month of April has obviously become a hotly contested period for TV markets, and Lisbon is now a hot destination after the closing of MIPTV in Cannes, France. Reps for Brunico began considering the April 2026 move after its late June 2025 Budapest market was overshadowed by the successful New Europe Market in Dubrovnik, Croatia, held in early June. Questex’s move to Europe in April followed last year’s Stream TV event in Denver, Colorado, which will be held for the fifth time in Denver, June 16-19, 2026. In Assisi, Italy, Rai Com will stage a screening of its own program offerings April 14-17, while Canneseries, in Cannes, France, will take place April 23-28, and Hot Docs in Toronto on April 23-May 3. Then there is that juggernaut NAB Show, set for April 18-22, 2026, at the Las Vegas Convention Center in the U.S. The various April TV markets and events are not expected to affect the anticipated success of this year’s L.A. Screenings, which will be held May 14-20 in Los Angeles, with an extended schedule at all the U.S. studios, and confirmed participation of many independent exhibitors at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills (see separate front cover story). C21’s managing director David Jenkinson said: “Scores of companies have told us there is a need for a traditional sales and acquisitions market in April following the closure of MIPTV. Content Europe will be a cost-effective response to that demand, providing affordable exhibition and screenings facilities for distributors who would like to connect with buyers from all over the world.” Content Europe will be held at the Marriott Hotel in Lisbon, some 5.4 kilometers from the Baixa city center. The three-day event will consist of a Marketplace, Screenings, and a Format Pitch, plus a three-track conference program: The Future Formats Forum, The Content Acquisitions Summit, and The Kids Content Summit. In total, there will be 53 speakers for 25 conference sessions. The whole event will take place across two floors of the Marriot Hotel, and the marketplace will be offering booths and meeting tables to content distribution companies. The event is expected to house 200 international content acquisition executives who will be visiting 50 exhibiting companies. In total, the event is expected to house over 1,000 participants, and C21 explained in a press release that “buyers from platforms and channels can register for free.” Jenkinson has been quoted as saying that “the organizers will host key international buyers free of charge, and will also engage them through a series of Buyer Briefings, offering insights into their acquisitions and co-production needs.” Pictured on the cover: Lisbon's iconic tram 28. VIDEOAGE April 2026 April's TV Markets sunny side of the doc www.sunnysideofthedoc.com 22-24 june 2026 right time, right partners, right connections
CONNECTING LATAM & US HISPANIC CONTENT WITH THE WORLD 17 → 20 Nov. 2026 Moon Palace, Cancun, Mexico Save the date
(Continued From Cover) 14 as March 10, and the quickness of many indie distribution companies to book exhibition space just a few days after the SLS Hotel was announced as this year’s venue for the indies. The studios will be welcoming buyers on their lots, while the independents will operate out of a new hotel, this time in Beverly Hills, strategically located between last year’s Hollywood venue and 2024’s Century City locale. Paramount is set for Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17 (with the 16th also including Latin America). NBCUniversal will screen May 16-18, with the Latin American contingent at NBCU on May 17. Sony Pictures TV will have a presentation and an event on May 17 and its LatAm screenings on May 19. Warner Bros. Discovery will screen May 18 and 19. And Disney is screening on May 18, 19, and 20, with Wednesday, as usual, reserved for LatAm buyers. Distributor Fifth Season is inviting buyers to screen on May 17. Lionsgate is having its event on May 18. Amazon MGM is screening in the morning on May 15 and in the afternoon on May 18. Fox Entertainment will have its traditional party on the Fox studio lot on Sunday, May 17, and Argentina’s Telefilms has scheduled its traditional screenings and cocktail party for the evening of Saturday, May 16 at the SLS Hotel. VideoAge’s printed and digital editions will be released during the Indie portion of the L.A. Screenings, which will start on Thursday, May 14, and run for two full days at the five-star SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. This new venue was suggested to Isabella Marquez, the L.A. Screenings’ indies organizer, by Ramona Burns, a hotel expert who once served as a Sales director at the now closed InterContinental Hotel in Century City, which was a favorite of L.A. Screenings participants. “I love this industry and want the best for exhibitors and buyers,” said Marquez. “We reached out to more than 20 hotels across Los Angeles to find the right setting to make L.A. Screenings a success.” Marquez also reported that the SLS Hotel has seven floors served by a four-elevator bank, and that both exhibition suites and tables are available. According to reports, many participants found last year’s L.A. Screenings hotel (The Roosevelt in Hollywood) to be insufficiently accommodating, and the previous venue, the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel in Century City, was considered too expensive. The response for the new hotel has been described as phenomenal. In less than a week after the announcement of the new venue, all 45 hotel suites were sold out to international content distribution companies, and the initial 15 tables were expanded to 20. Among the exhibitors are: Disney Entertainment, NBCUniversal, Caracol Television, Inter Medya, Madd Entertainment, ATV, TV Azteca, Fremantle, Telefilms, and Record TV, reported Isabella Marquez, who added: “This year, the L.A. Screenings independents is also counting on the participation of 13 Korean companies brought by KOCCA, the South Korea Creative Content government agency. It is expected that, ultimately, the indie portion of the L.A. Screenings will have 60 exhibitors (versus 57 in 2025). In terms of this year’s network upfront expectations, early predictions for the U.S. TV networks’ content output see ABC’s lineup emphasizing dramas, reality franchises, and medical procedurals. CBS is predicted to maintain its strength in procedural dramas and sitcoms. NBC, on the other hand, will lean toward sports and reality competitions, while FOX will blend sports, reality shows, and scripted content. Finally, The CW is expected to continue its shift toward reality, sports programming, and to reduce its scripted content. Advertising across the TV landscape is increasing, but advertising agencies like Publicis are taking a beat because they fear that AI will impact their business. The Paris-based international advertising group lost one quarter of its stock value over the past year amid investors’ AI fears. This is despite the fact that AI is expected to improve Publicis’ profitability and increase its organic growth by 4.9 percent in 2026. The advertising agency’s sector is also contracting after New York City's Omnicom acquired fellow NYC firm Interpublic last year, while the British WPP is preparing a new strategy under the new leadership of Cindy Rose. In 2025, Publicis’ accounts generated $8.16 billion, while net profit reached $1.95 billion. All in all, the studios are expected to screen a good amount of new content, mixing broadcast, cable and streaming output that might not bring new revelations on the road to Damascus, but will surely serve as indications to international content buyers of paths to follow to reach more TV audiences in their domestic markets. Isabella Marquez and Lissette San Martin organize the indie segment of the L.A. Screenings FOX Entertainment’s Fernando Szew, Prentiss Fraser, Rob Wade VIDEOAGE April 2026 L.A. Screenings 2026
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(Continued From Cover) 16 ready paying for airfare and hotels to attend the London Screenings and the concurrent BBC Showcase, the offer of two or three days of free accommodations from RX would likely entice some of them to come a little early and also attend MIP London. Meanwhile, executives at the IET Building — where most of MIP London was held (in addition to the adjacent Savoy Hotel) — are hoping that reps for RX will soon confirm the same approximate dates for next year’s MIP London with the proviso that the event begin at least two days earlier than the London Screenings (as soon as that event’s dates are announced). But back to the event’s success as a conference. Indeed, MIP London had as many conferences (40, plus screenings and presentations) as there were exhibitors (51 versus 79 in 2025) during the three-day event that concluded Tuesday, February 24, 2026. And while the conferences were overflowing with participants, the sales floors (located on three floors of the IET building and one floor of the adjacent Savoy Hotel) were sparsely trafficked. The widely held belief is that MIP London was meant to leverage the 700 international buyers who flock to attend both the London Screenings and the BBC Showcase. RX had positioned MIP London as a notto-be-missed conference with a line-up of interesting seminar topics, but it avoided highlighting the TV market by downplaying the 51 exhibiting companies in its press releases. Originally, the strategy did make sense, especially considering that the event runs parallel to the established TV events at the London Screenings and the BBC Showcase. Although technically separate events, those screenings provide the market portion, while MIP London brings in the conference portion that seems to be a fixture of all modern TV events (as it tends to increase participation). In terms of participation at MIP London, the largest contingent (376 people) was from the U.K. Other large contingents included Spain with 43 delegates, Italy with 33, Turkey with 28, and the U.S. with 152 participants. Nevertheless, “it is not a sales market,” said Bomanbridge’s Sonia Fleck, who flew in from her home base in Singapore. Fleck, who was at MIP London with a table (like all other exhibiting distribution companies), explained: “I’m at MIP London to reconnect with a spectrum of clients.” And, since she also attended the London Screenings, she added: “The Screenings are important for our producers.” The London Screenings are also important to international buyers, many of whom were enticed to attend MIP London with the promise of free hotel accommodations if they registered on site at the IET building. RTE Ireland buyer Dermot Horan did not take advantage of this offer, but he still managed to attend MIP London on Sunday, opening day, and held six meetings. However, he said, starting on Monday he’d be super busy with the London Screenings and the BBC Showcase. Equally busy at MIP London was Javier Quevedo Pérez, from the Content Distribution arm of Spain’s RTVE, who was spotted running to meetings at the Savoy, while his exhibition table was at the IET Building. Also attending MIP London but not exhibiting were Sabrina Eleuteri from Italy’s Rai Com and Darrin Holender, president of the Los Angeles-based Multicom Group, who said: “MIP in Cannes was always worth the trip as a destination. That said, I am hopeful MIP London will be more compact and effective in getting decision-makers together, especially in a central city like London.” Also paying a quick visit to MIP London was All3Media’s Rachel Glaister before preparing for her company’s own Screenings. YLE Finland TV buyer Johanna Salmela was also spotted at the Savoy Hotel. She managed to participate at MIP London even though she was mainly in the city for the London Screenings events, which feature the BBC plus 36 other content distribution companies scattered about London. The Screenings, which ended on Friday, February 27, attracted a large number of buyers from all over Europe. Most of the Screenings offered drinks or a party at the end of the screening day, like Boat Rocker did at The Wigmore bar. Cathy Payne, CEO of Banijay Rights, noted that buyers are extremely busy during the London Screenings, leading to Banijay’s decision not to throw a party. “But we offer drinks at the end of the day, for those who can remain. It’s more practical,” she said. In addition, she said that she’d been careful to avoid scheduling conflicts with the 26 other companies that were also screening. VideoAge spoke with Payne for the point of view of one participating London Screenings TV distribution company. She noted that in 2022, Banijay was one of the co-founders of the first London Screenings event (together with ITV Studios, Fremantle, and All3Media), and that it has now become Payne’s “major market of the year.” She continued: “With the success of MIPCOM [in Cannes in October], the April MIP in Cannes became less relevant.” For this year’s London Screenings, Banijay hawked its wares on February 25 at the BAFTA location on Piccadilly. There was a morning session for scripted and non-scripted and an afternoon session for formats. She said she expected each session to draw in 400 buyers, who, she stressed, were personally invited. “We license directly, and don’t invite middlemen/agents,” Payne concluded. Bomanbridge’s Sonia Fleck Global Agency’s Izzet Pinto during a presentation Boat Rocker’s Mellany Welsh and Jon Rutherford at their London Screenings’ party Multicom Entertainment’s Darrin Holender VIDEOAGE April 2026 MIP London
18 Luxury Hotels Are Up, Economy Rooms Are Down in the U.S. If hotel room costs are escalating during international TV trade shows, blame the rich. According to data provided by Nashville, Tennessee-based hotel researcher STR (part of CoStar company), hotels with average daily rates of U.S. $500 or more are up by nine percent, while low-category hotel occupancy is 16.7 percent lower than a year ago. Luxury hotels are growing the most, followed by “upper scale” and midscale hotels, while the economy ones show negative growth. In the U.S., aggravating the issue with middle and lower hotel categories is the fact that there has been a reduction in the number of foreign visitors. In January, for example, visits to the U.S. were down by 3.4 percent for Europeans, 11.7 percent for Asians, and 7.5 percent for Canadians, compared to a year earlier. NAB SHOW LAS VEGAS April 18-22 Las Vegas, NV, U.S. Tel: (+1 202) 429-3183 www.nabshow.com CONTENT EUROPE April 21-23 Lisbon, Portugal Tel: (+44) 20 7729 7460 www.contentevents.net L.A. SCREENINGS May 14-20 Los Angeles, CA, U.S. Tel: (+1 212) 288-3933 www.lascreenings.org CANNES FILM FESTIVAL May 12-23 Cannes, France Tel: (+33) 1 5359 6100 www.festival-cannes.com CONECTA FICTION May 25-28 Calvià, Mallorca, Spain Tel: (+34) 915 155 875 www.eventconecta.com NEM DUBROVNIK June 8-11 Dubrovnik, Croatia Tel: (+385) 1 6408 310 www.neweumarket.com Recognized standard of quality in Audio Description descriptivevideoworks.com With more than 40,000 television shows, feature films and LIVE shows completed, you can rely on us to deliver your project on budget and on time. Our technical expertise guarantees a top quality product - a commitment we’ve made to our clients for more than 20 years. Descriptive Video Works is committed to providing access to all forms of visual media Request a Quote info@descriptivevideoworks.com VIDEOAGE April 2026 Event Planner
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