10 Almost everyone — buyers and sellers alike — whom VideoAge spoke with liked MIPTV, but they had a few caveats, of course, which will be detailed below. The main challenge is getting MIP-TV organizers to face the caveats. Case in point: A fact-finding interview that a MIP-TV aide conducted with a European buyer to assess the market. The buyer first outlined the close competition that MIP-TV is facing before the market with Kidscreen for children’s shows, and just after the market with the L.A. Screenings. Then he explained that MIP-TV’s calendar dates should be as close to the month of March as possible. Third, he reported, prices have to be lowered in accordance with the status of today’s market, not only to lure more exhibitors, but also to retain those who currently attend but have difficulty in justifying the expenditure. After the interview, the buyer toldVideoAge that the MIP-TV aide confided to him that she couldn’t possibly share those observations with her boss. However, market organizers are already well aware of cost issues; they even dispatched a security guard to the Grand Hotel to verify whether patrons wore MIP-TV badges or held hotel keys. That’s because, reportedly, some television executives conducted meetings at that hotel without paying a registration fee. Similarly, at last year’s MIP-TV organizers had to chase nonregistrants away to keep them from conducting meetings at the Majestic Hotel. And so, in the views of many sellers and buyers, the market is being challenged by the organizers’ refusal to face those issues, which they rebuff by citing the growing number of participants — whether or not that translates into sales meetings. One of the many pieces of good news, though, is that during MIP-TV the usual April showers held off, with pleasant temperatures throughout the four-day market. Of course, it should be noted that MIP turned out to be a two-day market for some people, especially top-level executives. One U.S. studio chief commented that “top-level executives are those who leave on the second day.” Plus, one exhibitor told us, “Buyers don’t stick around to browse as much as they used to because they use the Internet to research ahead of time. Then they go to their scheduled meetings and leave.” A+E Networks’ Joel Denton explained that this phenomenon makes it possible to complete deals at MIP, and Chris Knight of Gusto TV found that “buyers were serious about buying,” and he even expressed a desire for the market hours to begin earlier in the morning. A weaker studio presence was a boon for smaller companies, which experienced a longer three-day market with appointments throughout the morning of Wednesday, April 15, and thanks to the shorter market period, many distributors were busy with meetings as early as Sunday, the day before the market officially opened. Among the countries thatwerewell represented this year are China and the Nordic countries (thanks to the official Focus on the Nordics). But while Scandinavians were their usual reserved, understated selves, the surprisingly large Chinese presence filled the basement portion of the Palais with colorful exhibits (red is their favorite color). For his part, Subhash Mishra of WWE was “very encouraged by the greater-than-expected number of digital buyers. It’s a great place to meet everyone who matters because they’re all here,” he said. “I hope the organizers continue to push digital in the future.” The Fremantle Corp.’s Diane Tripp and Aliy Brown told VideoAge that every half hour was booked, and they even had appointments with new digital platforms. “We even hadmore appointments than we expected on the last day,” they added. Similarly, Antonio Molina of NovoVision found this MIP to be “as busy as last year, especially the first two days. We had 90 percent of our appointments prescheduled, leaving about 10 percent of our agenda for walk-ins.” As far as big news that broke at MIP-TV, Televisa and reality TV producer Mark Burnett are teaming up to create Generation Gap, a new family game show. Burnett, who was at MIP, is also behind 500 Questions, which is being sold by Warner Bros. andA.D, sold by MGM. VideoAge caught up with Burnett just before he and his wife Roma Downey headed to Cinecittá in Rome to start production on the remake of Ben-Hur, a theatrical feature for MGM. As for content, some buyers reported an abundance of drama series coming from new cable/satellite channels. Naturally, as usual, all eyes (and minds) were looking to the approaching L.A. Screenings. On the conference side, only two of about 100 on the program were covered by VideoAge Daily: the Ivory Coast-organized conference about the French-speaking West African TV sector and Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré’s keynote presentation, both held on Tuesday. Among the celebrities on the Croisette were Mena Suvari, Ray Liotta, Bill Paxton and Idris Elba. Content had a cocktail party on Tuesday and Elba — who stars in Mandela, My Dad and Me — was there. And speaking of cocktail parties, AMC held one on Tuesday to celebrate The Walking Dead. AMC was at MIP-TV to expand its global reach — the worldwide brand has networks in 115 countries and territories. There were also cocktail parties courtesy of TF1 and NBCUniversal to announce a co-production partnership to produce original drama. Other parties, among the 20 or so recreational events, included those by eOne, TVFI, Eutelsat, Penthouse (celebrating its 50th anniversary), Red Arrow and Mark Cutten’s Digital Pioneers. The opening night party was courtesy of Italy’s Rai Com, while the Medal of Honor Gala was hosted by the MIP-TV organization, honoring FremantleMedia’s Cécile Frot-Coutaz, Kanal D’s (Dogan TV Holdings) Irfan Sahin, Rede Globo’s Ricardo Scalamandre and Electus’s Ben Silverman, who lightened up the event with a brilliant presentation. A Good Market With a CostBenefit Ratio Being Revaluated May 2015 MIP-TV Review A+E Networks’ Joel Denton with his sales team at MIP Rede Globo’s Ricardo Scalamandre was one of the recipients of the Médaille d’Honneur this year Record TV Networks’ Delmar Andrade Televisa’s Ricardo Ehrsam and producer Mark Burnett announcing the launch of reality game showGeneration Gap
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