10 February 2014 Sun Heats Up NATPE Canadian Media Production Association and the Alliance of Canadian Cinema Television and Radio Artists all participated. Entertainment One’s (eOne) Valerie Cabrera said this edition was “twice as successful as last year. We had a bigger presence this year, a great programming slate, and we announced an exclusive multi-year international distribution with El Rey Network in which eOne will handle the network’s growing slate of original scripted programming.” Cabrera also noted that eOne “closed a few deals with some Latin American territories on titles such as The Red Road and Panic Button.” While in Miami, she met with buyers from pan-regional territories, as well as key territories such as Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and Mexico, among others. Turkey-based Kanal D attended NATPE for the first time this year, and the company was enthusiastic about participating because, according to Kerim Emrah Turna, “It is important for us to present our Turkish drama to the Latin world and build relationships with clients in Latin America.” Gene George of Starz Worldwide Distribution said his team saw buyers from all over Latin America, “especially the pan-Latin American pay-TV providers and free-TV stations frommajor territories such as Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. We also had activity fromless populated countries such as Nicaragua, Panama and Bolivia.” His team was “extremely busy” this year, with many buyers showing great interest in Starz’s new series Black Sails, which launched in the U.S. on STARZ the weekend before NATPE. “Even though the free-TV window in Latin America is not available until well into 2015, we began discussions…based on the successful U.S. launch,” said George. Plus, he also noted that the company already has a number of longterm partnerships in place in Latin America. “We are just beginning to initiate discussions about extending those deals,” he added. GRB Entertainment’s Benn Watson noted that “NATPE delivered fantastic opportunities to meet with our existing clients and explore new opportunities with broadcasters and producers from not only Latin America, but from around the world.” He added, “we have strong relationships across the Latin America region [and] it was great to establish new business with countries such as Nicaragua, PanamaandColombia.NATPEgaveus theopportunity tomeetwithmanyproducerswho presented some fantastic ideas, many of which our development team at GRB are finalizing, so we’re looking forward to announcing some of these opportunities in the near future,” Watson said. “We also announced several Latin America deals: ESPN Brazil (My Beautiful Game), National Geographic Channel (Hurricane Hunters) and Discovery Latin America (FBI: Criminal Pursuit, Wicked AttractionandUntold Stories of the ER).” This year, talk about problems — like long elevator lines and high prices at the Fontainebleau Hotel (the market’s exhibition venue) — was mostly an afterthought, with some exhibitors vowing to move from the elevator-challenged Tresor to other less congested hotel towers, like the Sorrento, next year. Plus, prices at the Fontainebleau are so high (a small bottled water cost $6.55) that this year, crowds seemed to gather in the main entrance of the rotunda rather than at the bar area, as they did last year. The boats docked across the street from the Fontainebleau still represented a bane to NATPE organizers, with one content distributor renting a boat after inquiring about exhibiting—a practice highly discouraged by NATPE. What is unclear is how the organizers viewed the Argentinean Consulate in Miami’s decision to rent a boat for Argentina’s NATPE participants to wine and dine their clients. Finally, NATPE Miami is still strictly viewed as a LATAM event (even though there were some Scandinavian and French buyers), which limits the U.S. studios’ and mini-majors’ involvement. On the plus side, some glamour returned to the marketwith15partiesandthepresenceofmorethan 22 celebrities, including TV stars and personalities. Philip Levine, the new mayor of Miami Beach, made a presentation at Sunday night’s Welcome Party, which preceded the Opening Night Party on Monday night. Telemundo held a press conference to announce its deal with Reset TV to jointly own, develop, produce and distribute El Artista (working title), slated to premiere in the 2014-15 TV season. Viacom International Media Networks The Americas held a press conference to announce the expansion of its production targeting millennials across multiple platforms in key markets, greenlighting original content such as Nickelodeon’s first-ever Portuguese-language novela in Brazil, Dani Who?, the Kids Choice Awards ColombiaandCatfish Colombia. They also announced that MTV Latin America has Mexican formats of MTV’s Jersey Shore andRidiculousness in development. The event culminated with all journalists in attendance receiving iPad Minis (complete with a Nickelodeon app) as gifts. The Tarikoff Legacy Award honored Televisa’s Emilio Azcárraga Jean, Lionsgate’s Jon Feltheimer, producer/writer James L. Brooks and LZ Sunday Paper founder Lauren Zalaznick (who was with NBCUniversal when NATPE first announced she would receive the award). International buyer attendance increased this year, as did the contingent of Canadians, who mostly exhibited on the market floor (some Canadian participants were there without stands). In addition, NATPE sponsored a Spotlight on Canada initiative with a co-production session in which Telefilm Canada, Canada Media Fund, “Many of the Latin American buyers I met with were from the pan-regional channels,” said Content Television & Digital’s Diana Zakis. “But NATPE also offered a great opportunity to meet with buyers from a range of free-TV channels and digital platforms who were in attendance from countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay and others,” she added. Content concludeda “major salewithapremium pay-TV broadcaster in Latin America for [its] latest drama series Serangoon Road.” Zakis also said the company “struck deals for…new seasons of the British primetime drama seriesLine of Duty andThe Bletchley Circle, which were available at the market for the first time.” Thus, Zakis found that this edition was “equally as busy and successful as last year, with all our sales team in back-to-back meetings for the entire market. We were able to meet people from new channels who had not attended in the past, which is a positive indication for the future of the market.” Perhaps because the market was so busy, the overall consensus was that it was too short. Many exhibitors felt that with the market lasting only three days (and with the difficulties many buyers have maneuvering from tower to tower, and in some cases just from one floor to another in the same tower), they simply don’t have enough time to devote to each client. In fact, the long lines at the elevator banks in the Tresor Tower continued until Wednesday afternoon, January 29, the last day of the market. Attendance figures were once again not available since NATPE no longer releases them. Next year, NATPE will return to the Fontainebleau, but it will be held a week earlier, from January 20-22, starting on a Tuesday rather than the traditional Monday so as not to coincide with the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday in the U.S. The date change was made due to Fontainebleau’s availability. Additionally NATPE will not conflict with the increasingly successful Realscreen Summit, held in Washington, D.C. SA (Continued from Cover) Artear’s Luciana Egurrola GRB’s Benn Watson Telefilms’ Alejandro Carballo, Alfredo Andreotti, Humberto Delmas France M6’s Bernard Majani, NPN Media’s John Cuddihy
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