broadcasters.” However, she added, “my main focus is placing at least one of our series with each and every terrestrial channel across the world.” In addition to China, Chloe Van den Berg, director of Sales for London’s Entertainment Rights (ER), is focusing on Brazil, India and Russia. “We’re seeing such growth in those areas,” she said, noting that ER is coming to the Palais with a slew of kiddie shows, including Kung Fu Magoo and the preschool-aimed Guess With Jess . “Of course, we’re also focused on the majors, but it’s taken a lot of time and patience to build these newer markets.” As usual, this year’s conference will feature a heaping helping of speeches and panels. Highlights include a keynote from Michael Eisner, former CEO of the Walt Disney Company, and the current driving force behind online content companies Vuguru and Veoh, who will speak about his utopian vision of an entertainment industry that will bring the consumer, the producer and the distributor closer together; a speech by Philippe Dauman, president and CEO of Viacom, who will discuss the creative resurgence at Viacom’s cable properties in terms of traditional programming and multi-platform integration; a keynote from Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of filesharing website YouTube (see related story on pg. 32); and a discussion with David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery Communications, who will talk about Planet Green, Discovery’s global initiative to preserve and celebrate the planet. MIPCOM 2007 drew a total of 13,371 participants, a seven percent increase over the previous year’s market. Some 4,585 companies from 105 countries were on hand. Reed Midem, organizer of the event, hopes for even higher numbers for MIPCOM 2008, even though one can only imagine where these new souls are going to be accommodated. LHR OC T O B E R 2 0 0 8 will soon be on the air there. The company also has soaps airing in the Philippines, Japan, and Korea, among other locales. Aristimuño believes that Telemundo’s novelas do so well in Asia because “they’re simple love stories and they have a beginning and an end. People can relate to them.” Asia is also an important market for U.K.-based Fireworks International. “While every territory is pivotal to our company’s success, we have noticed significant growth trends in the Asian, Eastern, and Central European and Latin American markets,” said Fireworks’ Saralo MacGregor. “We see these territories as areas of great potential.” MacGregor, who’ll be at MIPCOM with a number of new programs, including live-action tween series Half Moon Investigations and Family Biz, also spoke to the recent strike in the U.S. “Buyers are still waiting to see what the networks will be airing this fall in order to make strategic buying decisions,” she said. “Fireworks has been less affected than some given the fact that we have continued to acquire new programming despite the strike. Our catalogue has now grown in size to over 3,000 hours of quality programming following our recent acquisition of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program library, as well as Allumination FilmWorks’ library.” Eileen Pesah, head of Sales at the U.K.’s Pilot Productions, said that she too will be focusing on Asia. “All territories are equally important to us,” she said. “But obviously, with China opening up, I am particularly keen to place our catalogue with Chinese M I P C O M P r e v i e w Fireworks’ Saralo MacGregor (Continued from Page 44)
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