V I D E O a A G E JA N U A R Y 2 0 1 3 8 Well, perseverance and investment in a longterm presence in Asia seem to have paid off for those who made the commitment. This is according to those few Latin American distribution companies that returned to exhibit at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF), despite a difficult few years. Companies reported full appointment schedules and good responses, due to positive relationships established with buyers over the years. Not everyone, however, managed to stay the course. The Italians, for example, pulled out of ATF, betting instead on the Hong Kong International Film Festival in the spring. But even if better relationships with Asians will eventually evolve into program sales, some European distributors are feeling the pinch of ATF’s increasing market costs and, for the next ATF, are trying to huddle together into a mega-umbrella European pavilion. So far, the project (which will benefit from both European marketing subsidies and individual countries’ export incentives) has attracted interest from France, Spain and Germany, while an initial approach was made to the Italians through the Singapore office of their Trade Commission. Meanwhile, ATF continued to be driven by independents such as Zodiak, GRB and Studio 100, and mini-majors like FremantleMedia, Viacom, ITV, A+E and MGM. However, this time at ATF, there was a good U.S. studio presence with exhibitors such as CBS, NBCUniversal and Disney. “We have been attending ATF for several years and it has proved to be a valuable market for us ever since our first presence there, especially with those broadcasters who do not attendMIPCOM or MIP-TV,” said Patrick Elmendorff, managing director at Studio 100 Media. “We primarily focus on Southeast Asia with an emphasis on Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Furthermore, India, South Korea and Japan are also territories that are very important to us,” he added. “ATF is always a great market to reconnect with current and potential partners in the Southeast Asia region, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia,” said Mario Castro, director of Sales for Asia and Africa at Televisa Internacional. “It is always nice to see how emerging economies develop and grow in presence year after year at ATF. This market is consolidating as the gateway to Southeast Asia’s TV industry and it’s more than clear when we see [a larger] presence of young or new channels, networks and producers.” Asia: A Tough Territory Facing a Difficult Market A T F R e v i e w CBS Studios International’s Paul Gilbert, Mie Horasawa, Nicole Sinclair and Alysha Chopra Cheng-Chun Yeo, assistant CEO of Media Development Authority of Singapore (fourth from the right), hosted a seminar about “China-Singapore Dialogue” Azteca’s Marcel Vinay, Martha Contreras Studio 100’s Patrick Elmendorff The opening ceremony officiated by Singapore’s Minister of Communications, Yaacob Ibrahim, flanked by Michelle Lim, managing director of ATF organizer Reed Exhibitions and Cheng-Chun Yeo, assistant CEO of Media Development Authority of Singapore (Continued on Page 10)
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