INTERNATIONAL www.VideoAge.org The entertainment sector the world over has a problem that even the most brilliant minds have not yet been able to solve. It is not making enough money with traditional broadcasting, and it is losing money with innovating streaming platforms. As demonstrated by the planned acquisition of Tegna by Nexstar, local U.S. TV groups are investing money to reduce offerings, which is something done when there aren’t other ideas on how to approach the future. Nexstar has stations in 35 of Tegna’s 51 TV markets, and the consolidation is expected to generate savings of $300 million a year. This compares to years ago, when home video challenged the broadcasting sector, and the TV stations Imagine experiencing all of TV’s many changes over the years while working under the same bosses (albeit at different companies), and managing to hold on to your sense of humor? Len Grossi can more than imagine it. My 2¢: Justifying shortcomings and blaming journalism U.S. sports on TV: Financial changes creating upheaval MIPCOM: The mother of all TV markets can be charitable or callous A case for safeguarding public radio-TV service broadcasting worldwide Page 42 Page 18 Page 14 Page 10 THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF FILM, BROADCASTING, STREAMING, PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION October 2025 - VOL. 44 NO. 6 - $9.75 How a Broadcaster-Streamer Uses Content & Technology MIPCOM Viewed by European and LatAm Buyers Len Grossi On Going Through TV Eras Seamlessly (Continued on Page 36) (Continued on Page 26) (Continued on Page 30) Tired of journalists reporting on the ins and outs of TV trade shows? After all, what do they know? One way to produce a verifiable account is to yield to those participants who are at the market to acquire TV content. And this is exactly what VideoAge has done, giving the floor to Dermot Horan, director of Acquisitions & Co-Productions at RTÉ, Ireland (page 26), and Jimmy Arteaga, president of Programming, Promotion & Production at Hemisphere Media Group’s WAPA-TV, Puerto Rico (page 28)
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 VIDEO AGE INTERNATIONAL (ISSN 0278-5013 USPS 601-230) IS PUBLISHED SEVEN TIMES A YEAR,. PLUS DAILIES, BY TV TRADE MEDIA, INC. © TV TRADE MEDIA INC. 2025. THE ENTIRE CONTENTS OF VIDEO AGE INTERNATIONAL ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT IN THE U.S., U.K., AND ALL COUNTRIES SIGNATORY TO THE BERNE CONVENTIO AND THE PAN-AMERICAN CONVENTION. SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO VIDEO AGE INTERNATIONAL, 216 EAST 75TH STREET, SUITE 1W, NEW YORK, NY 10021, U.S.A. PURSUANT TO THE U.S. COPYRIGHTS ACT OF 1976, THE RIGHTS OF ALL CONTENT DONE ON ASSIGNMENT FOR ALL VIDEOAGE PUBLICATIONS ARE HELD BY THE PUBLISHER OF VIDEOAGE, WHICH COMMISSIONED THEM Finding a way to justify my shortcomings involves chutzpah, dragging philosophy into it, picking the right excuses, and blaming it on journalism. Page 42 Cover Stories News Sean Cohan: How a broadcaster- streamer uses content and technology Content buying: European and LatAm POVs on MIPCOM Cannes International TV Distribution Hall of Fame: Len Grossi on going through TV eras seamlessly 4. World: Inside out with Hollywood casting director Bruno Rosato 6. World: Can the logic of analytics be applied to TV ads? 12. MIP Africa review: Market shows potential. New 2026 October date will fulfill it 14. MIPCOM Cannes: The mother of all TV markets can be charitable or callous 34. Presenting the American Film Market’s new L.A. location 8. Book Review: The art of failure. This history of film flops tells a different Hollywood story 10. A case for safeguarding public service broadcasting in the world 18. U.S. TV Sports: Fan economy changes creating upheaval 22. From journalist to press officer to PR agent 24. Use it or lose it. It’s the law. Reversion of rights 26. European buyer: At MIPCOM to find a gem of a new show 28. LatAm buyer: MIPCOM has different implications than MIP Cancun 30. Hall of Fame: Len Grossi 40. The world’s best airports are not those you’d wish. Plus, calendar of events Features
4 (Continued on Page 6) from Montreal who has been working on Hollywood movies since 2001, when he was in Italy shooting a movie with Mel Gibson (pictured), and in the process of going to Poland to shoot another film. Rosato has been involved with 97 productions as casting director (To Catch a Killer, 2023; Last Hope, 2015, among others) and with 33 productions as producer. VideoAge: As a casting director, how do you find out about films or TV series in development or pre-production? Or do the production companies just call you? Bruno Rosato: At this point in my career, I get more calls than I make. But before reaching this stage, I had to be very persistent in seeking work and coming up with clever ways to generate business. VA: When you select an actor, do you give an idea of the salary, or is it the producer who talks about money? BR: Producers usually make the major offers, while casting directors act as advisers regarding an actor’s market value. VA: Do you cast strictly based on the script, or do you also have creative input on a character’s type? BR: I definitely have some creative input. Smart directors are open to letting actors in auditions influence the character and even reshape the writing in ways that hadn’t been considered before. VA: How do you go about a casting call? Do you call agents, advertise, or contact talent directly? BR: I usually work through breakdown services, as well as agency calls. If those channels don’t lead me to the right talent, I’ll also turn to social media or direct outreach. VA: How do you avoid creating enemies when rejecting a talent? BR: Actors should come into the room grateful for the opportunity and prepared to give their best. Even if they don’t land that role, they may The word “Casting Director” first entered the lexicon around 1814, and describes the person tasked with selecting actors for parts in stage productions, and, later on, for TV shows, and films. Italian film historian Marco Spagnoli added an extra peculiarity: “The role of casting director,” he reported, “emerged in Italy only in the 1960s, when many American movies were filming in Rome and they were using this role to choose actors. At first, it was more of an ‘American oddity.’ But, in the 1980s, the profession began to spread in Italy, as well, and in the 1990s, it became a truly recognized profession, with an association formed to unite all those involved in casting.” To get some insight, VideoAge reached out to Italian-Canadian Bruno Rosato, a 53-year-old casting director Inside Out with Hollywood Casting Director Bruno Rosato VIDEOAGE October 2025 World
6 to drive corporate decisions regarding content creation, distribution, marketing, and audience engagement, optimizing strategies for attracting and retaining viewers.” Naturally, data and e-commerce companies are now big businesses, as Meta’s AI, called “Veo,” can attest. It will create an entire ad, explain how to target it, and show the version of the ad according to viewers’ geolocations. The same ad for a car, for example, might depict someone driving through a blizzard when it will be viewed by someone in a snowy locale, and show someone else cruising down an urban street if the ad is aimed at city-dwellers. However, it is unknown if data-driven AI will replace the creativity of, for example, Apple Macintosh’s memorable 1984 commercial, that same year’s unforgettable Volkswagen The Force (Das Auto) commercial, or the Wendy’s Soviet Fashion Show ad from 1985. Plus, AI cannot understand sarcasm, a cultural element and a human characteristic that also takes into consideration context and subtle hints. The analytical logic for data-driven TV ads is there, but the analytical creativity is someplace else. If analytics ruined the game of baseball, as a new book by sports reporter Scott Miller, Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will, tried to demonstrate, could analytics also ruin today’s data-driven TV media? In baseball, the analytic era started in 2003, epitomized by Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (which went on to become a movie starring Brad Pitt in 2011). That was the year that Ivy League graduates took over the game with decisions made using forecasting models. Miller’s book quotes former baseball managers as cursing “this analytics crap.” Other managers, however, used analytics as a way to keep their jobs: “When your playbook is scripted [by data],” commented a manager quoted in the book, “it’s going to be harder for you to get fired if you stay with the script [even if you lose the game].” This comment was taken straight from an AI search: “Entertainment companies now rely on objective data Can The Logic of Analytics Be Applied to TV Ads? (Continued from Page 4) leave a strong impression on me that leads to a bigger role in a future project. VA: Rejection is part of an actor’s life, but actors are also very emotional. How do you deal with temper tantrums? BR: I remind them that I face rejection every day myself. I love what I do, and that passion keeps me moving forward. That same love and resilience will always bring new opportunities. Inside Out with Hollywood... VIDEOAGE October 2025 World Do you want distribution at MIP Cancun and ATF?
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8 British journalist Tim Robey explores the cultural phenomenon of the blockbuster flop and what it says about Hollywood. The Art of Failure: A History of Film Flops Tells a Different Hollywood Story By Luis Polanco “Merely log the highest-grossing films of a given decade, the Best Picture winners, and so forth, and you’re telling only a flattering fraction of the Hollywood story,” writes Tim Robey in his most recent book, Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops (336 pgs., Hanover Square Press, 2024, $32.99). Robey, a British journalist who writes on film for the Daily Telegraph, is fascinated with the cultural phenomenon of the “flop,” films with exorbitant budgets, disastrous production stories, uncontainable egos, and behindthe-scenes conflicts between the very people making the project, which, for some reason or other, fail totally at the time of their premieres. In Box Office Poison, Robey looks at the different species of flops, sharing stories from films ranging from the early twentieth century to the present. From chapter to chapter, each dedicated to a brilliant specimen of flop, the reader is charmed by Robey’s blazing voice, which is, at turns, breezy, snarky, and highly engaging. Robey begins with one of the earliest examples of a flop, D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. After the critical backlash to The Birth of a Nation by organizations such as the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) for the film’s overt racism and glorification of hate groups, director Griffith retaliated by reversing the script. Actually, his detractors were the intolerant ones, and not his film. Such was the origin story behind one of Hollywood’s first gigantic flops, Intolerance, a 1916 three-and-a-halfhour silent epic consisting of four stories that spanned centuries, covering Christ’s death, the St. Bartholomew Day's massacre of 1572, and the fall of the Babylonian empire in 539 BC. Even the brief glimpse at the film’s scope will hint at the headache the set design and budget caused. Robey writes, “It was one of the most ostentatiously vast film sets ever built—walls 300 feet (91 meters) high, enclosing a city within a city, with 3,000 costumed extras wandering about inside.” Robey suggests the film budget likely reached upwards of $2.5 million, although online rumors propose an exaggerated $8.4 million, and Griffith biographers such as Richard Schickel conclude $1.9 million was much more likely. Nevertheless, the film only grossed approximately one million, and when compared with Birth of a Nation’s $20 million worldwide gross, Intolerance set a low bar. Robey also highlights films that were flops for the danger they posed to the director and talent in potentially ruining their careers. One such case is David Lynch’s Dune, the space opera released in 1984 by Universal and adapted from Frank Herbert’s science-fiction novel of the same name. Dune — which was recently adapted into a two-part film by Denis Villeneuve — had a history of unsuccessful attempts at being made into a movie. At one point, Planet of the Apes producer Arthur P. Jacobs tried to adapt it, followed by a big financial push to get the Chilean-French avantgarde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky to direct a version. Then producer Dino de Laurentiis bought the rights to the book in 1978, and at first Ridley Scott was set to direct it, but then De Laurentiis got David Lynch, who was hot off of his critical acclaim with Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. Robey hints that one of the reasons for Lynch’s flop of a Dune adaptation could come from different visions between him and de Laurentiis. He writes, “If that phrase creative differences ever sank a film, it did this one — not as a euphemism for particularly bad personal spats, but in the truer sense of a stark, unresolved friction between what a director and his producers had in mind.” There was also the issue of the film’s scale and budget concerns. “With its 53 speaking parts, 70 sets, and 900 crew members, Dune was a gigantic enterprise that De Laurentiis, chronically averse to paying taxes, was determined to make on the cheap.” When the film was released, Dune’s budget reached $47 million and had a U.S. gross of $30.9 million. There is also the species of flop reserved for those weird, unsettling films that evoke an audience response of glee and horror. In this genre, Robey highlights the recent 2019 film Cats, directed by Tom Hopper and adapted from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wildly successful 1981 musical. The film featured a star-studded cast with everyone from theater royalty like Judi Dench and Ian McKellen to late-night personalities like James Corden to musical artists like Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift. The reasons behind Cats’ inclusion in the book of flops could be attributed to challenges in the production timeline and its considerable visual effects. After viewers were bewildered by the look of the film based on its trailer, the film’s flop status took on a comedic value. “[The movie] was a viral failure, memed everywhere,” writes Robey. It was also recognized as a box office disaster, with a budget of $95 million, but approximately $210 million with marketing, to only garner a worldwide gross amount of $75.5 million. The response to flops has changed, in part due to the impact that the pandemic and the shift to streaming has had on the movie-making business, particularly when theater-goers were unable to see movies in person. Flops, though, remain entertaining. There’s something deliciously exhilarating about flops. As Robey writes, “[we] crave them, we need to know all about them, and sometimes we can’t help but treasure them, even when we also can’t believe we’re physically seeing them.” There’s something deliciously exhilarating about flops. VIDEOAGE October 2025 Book Review
10 A Case for Safeguarding Public Service Broadcasting in The World Politicians of all stripes the world over have always tried to meddle with their public broadcasters, but lately, they’re increasingly imposing (or threatening to impose) budget cuts, instigating license fee freezes, and publicly discussing privatization. These are populist measures aimed at ensuring that the public service media remain government friendly. U.S. President Donald Trump’s cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) funding is just the latest example. Ironically, nationalistic politicians do not (or do not want to) understand the importance of public service media for the national identity of a country, which provides national, regional and local news, acts as a guardian of the national language, and provides arts and educational, as well as children’s programming. In a recent address, Catalan politician Diana Riba Giner, Vice Chairwoman of the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament, remarked: “Today, in Europe, we find ourselves defending basic principles and fundamental rights, once again. And there is a real risk: that culture will be relegated to entertainment, anecdote, or folklore. Sometimes, there is this mistaken idea that culture is a luxury, a kind of complement. In Europe, we risk forgetting that culture is a democratic structure, one of the pillars that underpin our societal model.” The threat is there. It concerns all of public service media, but as television has the largest public impact let us concentrate on the provider of images and have a quick look at its history. Television was invented in various countries at around the same time. The first TV station in the U.S., W3XK, received a commercial license for inventor Charles Francis Jenkins and began broadcasting on July 2, 1928. The U.S., and later Latin America, operated commercially from the beginning, which implied monetizing content and therefore also quickly establishing a ratings system. The BBC officially launched on November 2, 1936. Europe opted for a public service and a license fee, as did Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The definition of this new service came from the BBC’s founding Director General, Lord Reith, whose mantra was “information, education, and entertainment.” For decades the BBC was looked upon as the unquestioned leader in the field. Under industry pressure commercial channels began to emerge and the creation of ITV in the U.K. began to put the BBC under pressure to maintain its viewership. Its conservative General Director James Trethowan (19771982) posited the fatally ill-founded idea that government might not renew the charter or from time to time increase the license fee if the BBC could not hold on to 50 percent of the total national viewership. A cutthroat competition between the two systems began, and the rest of Europe followed suit. Conversely, in the U.S., university-owned public services sprang up, which ultimately merged into public television, living mainly on donations, sponsorships, and some government funding. The world accommodated public service media with a different remit side by side with the commercial operators, who were only in the game to make money (in other words, making fashionable programming that provided the highest possible ratings and, also quite often targeted the lowest common denominator). Public service media, first reluctantly and later wholeheartedly, joined the ratings game. A game that caused CBS in the U.S. to ax the once popular Late Show with Stephen Colbert when it stopped attracting enough advertising. But the game changed dramatically with the arrival of the streamers, of which Netflix and Amazon Prime are the most successful. This created a completely new situation, with quality, subscription-based content, but limited to subject matter that is globally and instantly understandable — Squid Game being a format that springs to mind. But Netflix and its peers will not provide national, regional, or local news, will not cater to minority interests. In short, it will not nourish people but merely entertain them. Recently, an interesting survey in the U.S. showed that voters place most trust in public media and found that viewers value emergency alerts (82 percent), children’s educational programming (66 percent), local programming (66 percent), and national news reporting (60 percent). Add culture and you have most of the original public service remit. Public service media, however, does need to rethink its remit along the lines of the Reithian ethos (as envisioned by John Reith, the BBC’s first director general), maintain and expand on its news operations, build on its investigative journalism, broadcast more original fiction in its national language, put children’s educational programming on top of its list, cater to minorities, and take culture out of the present ghetto. At the same time, politicians should understand that public media serves democracy best when it remains apolitically critical. By Reiner E. Moritz* Public service media, first reluctantly and later wholeheartedly, joined the ratings game. *Reiner Moritz, operating from Germany, the U.K., and France, has been producing and distributing music and arts programming for 60 years. He is a keen observer of the evolution of public service broadcasting, and was instrumental in the creation of such iconic programs as David Attenborough’s Life on Earth, Robert Hughes’ The Shock of the New, Peter Brooks’ The Mahabharata, Peter Stein’s Faust, and Philip Short’s Mao: A Chinese Tale. VIDEOAGE October 2025 PBS Under Fire
12 Cape Town Market Shows Potential. New 2026 October Date Will Fulfill It The MIP Africa TV market opened on September 1, 2025, on a clear but cool day in Cape Town, South Africa, where it was the end of winter. But it’ll be warmer at next year’s event as the market is moving to the end of October (October 28-30, 2026), late spring in the southern hemisphere, which will most likely bring more buyers and exhibitors alike, all but ensuring that the South African TV event finally fulfills its full potential — a feat that thus far has proved elusive. Nonetheless, this year’s market opened with 85 exhibitors, including a number of key international production and distribution companies who were in Cape Town for the event: Globo TV (Brazil); Deustche Welle (Germany); Zee (India); TelevisaUnivision (Mexico); GMA (the Philippines); NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures TV, Warner Bros. (U.S.); Global Agency, Inter Medya, Media Hub, OGM (Turkey); and All3Media (U.K.). Among the exhibiting stands were also national pavilions from Canada, China, and Nigeria. For next year, additional country pavilions are “in the works.” However, most Pan-African acquisition executives were still missing from the event, despite the efforts of MIP Africa’s organizer, RX Global, which offered free passes and hospitality to verified buyers. Indeed, the general consensus on this fourth MIP Africa edition was that, for the many distributors who showed up at what is now the major Africa-centered TV market, there were not enough pan-African buyers in attendance. Organizers, who were well aware of this buyers’ issue, made an extra effort, and this year were able to attract new acquisition executives from Kenya and Ghana, and offered hospitality to many of them. Deutsche Welle’s Sevan Ibrahim-Sauer, who has been licensing content to Africa since the DISCOP days in Johannesburg, wished to see participation from Francophone Africa, a territory that used to attend the Joburg market. Deutsche Welle will be back in Cape Town to exhibit at AfricaCom, a large four-day gathering of Africa-focused telecoms staged annually in November. Despite the buyers’ problem, several exhibitors, such as Douglas Welch of TelevisaUnivision, who has faithfully been returning to MIP Africa year after year, had a full schedule of appointments, although he wasn’t particularly happy with the fact that all appointments were set up through the market platform or with the help of the organizers instead of having a full buyers’ list with contacts. Prior to the start of the market, which unspooled at the Cape Town International Convention Center, it was even difficult to obtain the list of exhibitors, which became available in the printed Show Guide on opening day. On the other hand, newcomer Mina Aslan of OGM Universe found the matchmaking database useful to both set up and follow up on meetings. GMA Network’s Oliver Bucar was also busy throughout the market selling and negotiating Filipino series — which are popular with African audiences. Inter Medya’s Pelin Koray and Neset Ersoy were back, after having attended previous MIP Africa editions, despite the fact that their Turkish series are becoming expensive for the African market, especially considering the added costs of dubbing. MIP Africa ended on Wednesday, September 3, but the related FAME Week media festival continued for two more days, closing on September 6. For the market-related portion of MIP Africa, now in its fourth year, RX Global offered a series of conferences and seminars that extended to three full days and featured a total of 70 sessions, with the largest number on Tuesday (27), which included the “Role of the Showrunner in African Storytelling,” and a YouTube presentation (nowadays a seemingly obligatory presence at any TV market). Earlier, on Monday, the conference portion presented two showcases, one from China, the other from South Africa’s MultiChoice Group, plus two interesting sessions, one titled “Language and Sounds in Animation,” the other about “Unmasking Piracy.” On Wednesday, the convention’s two conference rooms (Theater 1 and 2), were taken over by what looked like a marketing powwow, with sessions titled “The PR Playbook,” “Publicity Campaigns,” “Building Buzz,” and “How to Launch African Content.” The conference did not neglect the market floor: the portion of the convention that actually fueled the event by acknowledging “The Rise of Turkish & Indian Content in Africa,” even though Zee was the only exhibiting company from India, while Turkey featured four distribution companies. In addition, a delegation of 60 people from Atlanta, headed by its Mayor Andre Dickens, was at MIP Africa to foster cultural and economic relationships between the U.S. city and Cape Town. To this end, two sessions (on two different days) were devoted to “Building Bridges Through Cultural Diplomacy.” Plus, on the evening of the market’s inaugural day, MultiChoice held a cocktail reception at the Cape Grace hotel on the Cape Town marina. Day 2 was a busier day for social events: the African Women in Entertainment breakfast was held at the Mount Nelson hotel, with special guest U.S. actress Edwina Findley; Globo — and its African rep Mediawan — hosted a lunch and slate presentation on the terrace of the nearby Onyx hotel; and in the evening, the traditional FAME Week party was held at the waterfront. Going back to the recently announced new dates for 2026, the market will open on Wednesday, October 28 (rather than on a Monday, like this year), and closes three days later, on a Friday. Even though the period of the year will offer welcoming warmer weather, those dates will, however, bring the South African market very close to two other RX TV markets: MIPCOM Cannes and MIP Cancun: the former in October, and the latter in November. Still, many international MIP Africa participants will be happy to know that in its 10th annual ranking of the best 250 airports around the world, AirHelp, an online flight compensation service based in Berlin, Germany, listed Cape Town as having the number one airport, scoring 8.57 points out of 10 (see page 44). GMA Network's Oliver Bucar The MultiChoice team, headed by Nomsa Philiso (pictured at bottom right), at their Sundowners cocktail party. VIDEOAGE October 2025 MIP Africa Review
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14 MIPCOM: The Mother of All TV Markets Can Be Charitable or Callous The fact that MIPCOM Cannes is now the biggest trade show of the year for the international TV content industry is clear from the distance that other major international markets are taking from it. NAB will take place October 22-23 in New York City, while TIFFCOM will unspool in Tokyo October 29-31. Both will happen well after the four-day Cannes market ends on October 16. Another sign of MIPCOM’s predominance is the large contingent of ancillary content-related companies it attracts. The event draws everything from dubbing studios to research firms to data gatherers and metadata generators. It even lures in independent enterprises that offer to screen content outside MIPCOM’s Palais, as well as independent matchmakers. This is a trend generated by the fact that many companies are downsizing and the fact that many once internal functions now are outsourced. There is no question that to those ancillary TV businesses, MIPCOM is becoming a launchpad for visibility. Publications like VideoAge are inundated with misplaced requests by new market participants wanting to offer recreational services (that we don’t need), or requesting meetings for obscure presentations. Clearly, these new entrants don’t do their homework properly. Being the biggest TV market of the year also brings anxiety to participants, mostly fueled by RX, the Paris, France-based market organizer, which offered up a flurry of announcements that overwhelmed the international TV sector as early as July 22, 2025, 80 days ahead of the market’s October 13 start. Those very early announcements prompted a debate: “It’s never too early to talk about MIPCOM,” said one American TV studio executive. “What’s the rush?” retorted a British colleague. Well, the rush could be that RX is anxiously waiting for exhibitors to buy “Content Credits,” a concept that was introduced last year whereby, for 70 euro (U.S. $82), companies can upload one program onto MIPCOM’s main online screening library. To post a “project,” however, it costs 185 euro ($215). In any case, no matter how you slice it, MIPCOM is clearly not only an important industry appointment, but also a reflection of the state of the TV industry, which, these days, is all about anxiety over the future, uncertainty over the economic environment, political instability that muddies the clear vision of rules and regulations, and corporate insecurity created by moody investors’ demands, mergers, corporate breakups, and fast-moving technological advances. Today, major companies are being challenged by their low-revenue cable-TV and broadcasting assets and their high-cost sports TV licenses. Streamers are facing stiff competition and reduced profits. OTT platforms are limiting new FAST channels. And medium- and small-size content distribution companies are confronting a downward spiral with low and slow sales, the high-cost of new quality content, and hard-to-find product to distribute. When medium-sized distribution companies are cutting their promotion budgets for major TV markets — where the most visibility is needed — or are confined to advertise in marginal, low-cost publications just to show their producers that they’re actively promoting their shows, the message is clear that the situation is getting critical. An example for one way to recover could come from the fashion industry, where brands like Coach and Ralph Lauren outperformed the larger European brands by increasing their promotional budgets from four percent to 10 percent of sales (in the case of Coach), and four percent to seven percent (in the case of Ralph Lauren), with sales growing each by 10 percent overall, while sales for brands like LVMH decreased overall by 10 percent, and Gucci by 25 percent. The major theme at this year’s MIPCOM is the “Global Creator Economy.” This coincides with YouTube having its first major presence at the market. The creator economy program will take place in the Palais, at the Innovation Lab, located at the P-1 level, and at the additional location of the Creative Hub (formerly the Producers Hub) on the beach. RX has also partnered with media entrepreneur Rick Parkhill to stage, at MIPCOM, his first international edition of BrandStorytelling, which is a Dana Point, California-based organization for brand-funded programming summits (which has run at Sundance for the last 10 years and is meant to unite brands, digital content creators, and TV executives). BrandStorytelling will bring 25 speakers to Cannes on October 13 and 14 at the Hi-5 level of the Palais. MIPJUNIOR is having a makeover and moving to the Palais and the Gare Maritime (the building at the entrance of the port), and will take place Saturday, October 11 and Sunday, October 12, with more emphasis on networking, matchmaking, and roundtables. World Premieres are back Sunday to Tuesday. These include Paramount’s Boston Blue and Sony Pictures TV’s The Miniature Wife. But let’s have some of the MIPCOM players themselves from various parts of the world give us a reality check on this year’s Cannes market, starting with Chevonne O’Shaughnessy, CEO of the Los Angelesbased ACI Inspire, who was asked the question: Will you have more new content, compared to last MIPCOM? “Our library has grown by more than 20 percent since last MIPCOM, and we now represent over 600 titles across a wide variety of genres,” she answered. Similarly, from Istanbul, Kerim Emrah Turna, CEO of MediaHub, said: “Our lineup has expanded significantly since the last MIPCOM.” And from Singapore, Sonia Fleck, CEO of Bomanbridge Media, commented: “[Our] library has expanded significantly. We’ll have another 160 titles compared to MIPCOM 2024 through new partnerships we will announce shortly.” Sonia Mehandjiyska, head of International Distribution for the Los Angeles-based Electric Entertainment, was very direct: “We are constantly in production.” Armin Luttenberger, head of Content Sales, International, for Austria-based ORF-Enterprise, reported: “We are in a position where we can present and offer new and captivating content each season.” And, asked VideoAge: How are you adapting to the more challenging times? “We’re meeting challenges head on with both content and marketing innovation,” responded O’Shaughnessy. “On the content Lucy Smith is the director of MIPCOM Cannes. (Continued on Page 16) VIDEOAGE October 2025 Market Preview
16 (Continued from Page 14) side, we’ve ventured into TV production. At the same time, we’ve expanded our dubbed library into multiple languages to stay competitive where local accessibility is key. On the marketing side, we’ve doubled down on digital campaigns and social-driven storytelling to create buzz ahead of markets, ensuring that our titles cut through the noise and reach both buyers and audiences.” MediaHub’s Turna explained that “instead of scaling back, we are carefully growing our catalogue with titles that have both commercial appeal and creative depth.” And for Bomanbridge’s Fleck, “We are actively seeking to develop partnerships and synergies with third parties, which are mutually beneficial — particularly in the digital space. We are constantly looking to better assist financially both producers and network buyers. They are under incredible pressure right now and we know that we can help alleviate this by looking at a multi-pronged approach. There are countries, in Southeast Asia in particular, that are willing to put up funds for solid projects,” said Fleck. Do you believe that buyers are facing their own real challenges? asked VideoAge. “We believe buyers genuinely face challenges,” reported O’Shaughnessy. “Subscriber growth is slowing in many territories, while audiences are demanding fresher, more diverse stories. That creates pressure across the board.” Concurred Turna: “Buyers are definitely navigating real challenges, from tighter budgets to shifting audience habits. The market is growing more fragmented in terms of audience preferences and mediums.” Bomanbridge’s Fleck was more specific: “I impress upon our team that buyers are real people with real jobs and pressures who are just trying to make it through.” Luttenberger gave a different twist: “What concerns me even more are the significant upheavals in the fabric of our society which may ultimately also affect our industry and ultimately buyers’ room for maneuvering.” Since many large studios are going through structural and economic changes, VideoAge asked if these changes offered more opportunities to indies. “We see every disruption as a chance to stand out,” said ACI Inspire’s O’Shaughnessy. “Larger studios may be scaling back, but that opens doors for agile independents like us. That’s why we’ve leaned into original production. In today’s climate, indies who bring both creativity and flexibility are the ones buyers turn to.” To MediaHub’s Turna, “the restructuring of larger studios often creates space for independent players like us to step in with fresh content pipelines and quicker decision-making.” And for Fleck, “the chaos of the studios has led to a resurgence of strengthened localized storytelling. We see this in Europe, Asia, and Southeast Asia in particular, where in comparison to 10 years ago, today’s slots are dominated by local content.” Electric Entertainment’s Mehandjiyska was again more succinct: “We believe with changes come opportunities. However, the beginning of every such period will bring uncertainty.” ORF’s Luttenberger was more philosophical: “It’s difficult to predict to what extent new structures among the major market players will automatically guarantee success for smaller ones. After all, we are part of an ecosystem with many interconnected vessels. Time will tell which companies will be able to hold their own and take the right measures at the right time. In any case, indies have the advantage of a more structurally agile setup, and shorter decision-making processes for audience success, and thus, despite economic constraints, sometimes are at a competitive advantage.” Finally, asked VideoAge, how do you rate MIPCOM compared to your other important TV trade shows? “MIPCOM remains the flagship event of the fall calendar,” stated O’Shaughnessy. “For us, MIPCOM is as much about visibility and marketing impact as it is about transactions. Our titles benefit from the spotlight the market creates, which often accelerates deals in the months that follow.” To Turna, “MIPCOM remains a cornerstone for us. It continues to be the best stage to launch and highlight our originals. Each market has its value — LATAM-focused events like MIP Cancun or Content Americas, and APAC showcases like ATF — but MIPCOM stands out as the most global, where we can engage with partners across all territories at once. For a company like ours, balancing boutique scale with international ambition, it is essential.” And Fleck said: “We’re finding that the real players are attending [MIPCOM], whereas in previous years there were quite a few window shoppers. Perhaps smaller teams of people are going, but as a result we are meeting with the real decision-makers who are there to do business.” To Mehandjiyska of Electric Entertainment, “MIPCOM is a high-priority market for us. We are celebrating our 25th Anniversary this year at the show!” Concluded Luttenberger: “Frankly, we really missed having a major European multigenre marketplace and are very much looking forward to the upcoming MIPCOM.” No matter how you slice it, MIPCOM is not only an important industry appointment, but also a reflection of the state of the TV industry. VIDEOAGE October 2025 Market Preview
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18 Financial, Social, Philosophical, Fan Economy Changes Creating Upheaval In the United States, major sports on television are going through a seismic transformation on many levels — from splintering TV rights to cross-brand acquisitions to financial disparities among franchises to social changes and economic realities. Among these changes was the fact that Major League Baseball (MLB) welcomed Jen Pawol as its first female umpire, but at the same time the league is witnessing an escalating feud between franchise owners and players over the salary cap that could result in a strike. At the social level, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), whose biggest draw is Caitlin Clark, is currently embroiled in a public controversy about reverse discrimination. And the American National Football League (NFL) headquarters in New York City was recently the target of an attempted mass shooting by a mentally unstable former player. And all of this is occurring alongside a major overhaul of sports’ multiple TV rights assignments. Driving some of these changes is the new short-term corporate view that is replacing the old “plan for the future” mantra with financial maneuvers rather than sports considerations. To Parrot Analytics’ Chris Hamilton, the picture is clear: “The current sports rights landscape is absolutely at an inflection point,” he said. “What used to be a relatively simple broadcast model has now fragmented into a multi-platform strategy that resembles the old cable bundle, except with higher stakes for fans, leagues, and distributors. “For a league, spreading rights across multiple streamers and networks may maximize short-term revenue, but it also risks eroding fan engagement if access becomes too complicated. All the streamers are trying to figure out how to leverage sports to make money but nobody knows how,” Hamilton concluded. Now let’s look at some of the evidence. The NFL sold broadcast rights to CBS, NBC, FOX, and ESPN/ABC, plus to streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Google, and NFL+. The league’s latest television deals, spanning from 2023 to 2033, are worth $113 billion. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has signed new media rights deals with Disney (ABC and ESPN), NBC (including Peacock), and Amazon Prime Video, starting with the 2025-26 season. Overall, these 11-year agreements are worth $76 billion. Major League Baseball’s (MLB) national television and streaming rights are held by Apple, ESPN, FOX Sports, TBS, and Roku. Other potential contenders include Netflix and NBC. Then there’s college sports, which sealed deals with Comcast, Disney, FOX, Paramount, and Warner Bros.; World Wrestling Entertainment, which signed agreements with Comcast, Disney, Netflix, and The CW; and the National Hockey League, which signed contracts with Disney and Warner Bros. Netflix has secured exclusive U.S. rights to the quadrennial FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 and 2031. The 2027 event will mark the first time the Cup tournament will appear on a streaming service. Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., who runs the “Business World” feature in the Op-Ed pages of The Wall Street Journal, made the point in the August 9, 2025 edition of the Journal, that: “As football migrates away from big three TV networks and cable bundles [...] increasingly games will be spread over many streaming apps, which consumers will find it burdensome to track and subscribe to.” Historically, bundling cable TV channels had contributed to the general malaise of the U.S. cable TV sector, now it is wondered if it is possible that a similar tactic by various sports leagues will also harm popular U.S. TV sports offerings. Various research indicated that older and lower-income households (TVHH) stick to traditional TV, while younger audiences prefer streaming platforms, so advertisers tend to rely on streaming platforms to reach younger audiences, while using broadcast TV to reach older, less tech-savvy users, as well as lower-income TVHH. High subscription fees, however, could undermine results since younger fans may be keen on sports, but some are unable and/or unwilling to pay for the live TV transmissions. Widely reported surveys in sports articles also found that 34 percent of sports fans don’t watch live matches on TV due to the difficulty of accessing content and/or an unwillingness to pay. Plus, 65 percent of global sports executives are reported to be concerned over the continued relevance of live TV broadcasts for sports fans. Financial TV deals with individual clubs are also creating a huge financial disparity among the 30 major MLB franchises, where rich teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers can now spend close to $500 million on yearly salaries, while the Miami Marlins have a payroll of just $70 million. Similarly, the New York Mets are paying out $400 million a year, while the Chicago White Sox’s payroll is $90 million. Under the current system, the League sells the rights to national TV networks and divides the revenue among the 30 teams. In addition, each baseball franchise sells rights to regional sports networks (that lately are not doing well financially), which generates about 25 percent of their revenues. To spread money more equally, the League is proposing a model whereby the teams would give local TV rights to the League, which, in turn, would sell them as a unified package with revenue distributed among all teams. But expenditures and TV rights income are not all the same, and that is causing some Historically, bundling cable TV channels contributed to the general malaise of the U.S. cable TV sector. (Continued on Page 20) VIDEOAGE October 2025 U.S. TV Sports
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20 will give NFL access to Paramount’s CBS TV network. If approved by the U.S. regulatory agencies, the NFL’s stake in ESPN will cause Disney’s ownership to drop to 72 percent (from 80 percent), while the shares of Hearst, the other ESPN owner, will go from 20 percent to 18 percent. Similarly, Fox Corp. acquired 33 percent of Penske Entertainment (PE) to gain media rights for PE-owned IndyCar races. Fox Corp., which owns several TV channels, including FOX Network and FOX Sports, paid between $125 million and $135 million for the PE stake. PE is 67 percent owned by the Michigan-based Penske Corporation, helmed by Roger Penske, an 88-year-old former racecar driver who’s the chairman of a holding company active in various businesses. Penske reportedly wasn’t looking for capital, but was impressed with FOX’s 7.1 million viewers for this year’s Indy 500 (a 41 percent increase from 2024), while Fox Corp. was impressed by the increased interest in IndyCar races. (Penske is the father of Jay Penske, the owner of Penske Media Corporation, publisher of Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter.) In conclusion, in the U.S., large payoffs for television rights to sports leagues are changing the nature of sports telecasts, especially baseball, and it hasn’t anything to do with the “torpedo bats” (newly shaped, high-performance bat design). And it is understandable if we consider the fact that sports are the most valuable programming on TV. Of the top 100 U.S. telecasts of 2024, 85 were sporting events and related programming. (Continued From Page 18) concern. In 2013, the Dodgers signed a 25-year $8.35 billion deal with Time Warner Cable (now Charter Spectrum), and the Mets have an $85 million-a-year deal with SportsNet New York (SNY) up until 2035. These rights are in addition to the national licenses negotiated by the League. The income difference between rich and less rich teams is exacerbated by the lack of a players’ pay ceiling that is in place in other U.S. leagues. A baseball pay cap is opposed by the players’ union because it is considered anti-free market. Then there are the “inbred” acquisitions: The NFL is taking a 10 percent stake in Disney’s sports TV operator ESPN for an estimated value that ranges between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. The deal also calls for the NFL Network to be added to ESPN’s stable of channels, and for ESPN to distribute NFL’s Red Zone to pay-TV channels. Previously, in 2022, NFL and Skydance Media joined forces to create Skydance Sports, for the development of a variety of sports-related content, including scripted and unscripted films and series. Skydance, now owner of Paramount Global, VIDEOAGE October 2025 U.S. TV Sports October 22-23, 2025 | Javits Center | NYC Real Results. Fresh Energy. Secure Your Spot Today!
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22 It all started in Milan, where I was born, raised and attended a traditional high school. But it was in Bologna — home to the oldest university in the Western world — that I found my first real opportunity to enter the world of communications. At university, I had the privilege of studying with legendary figures such as Umberto Eco and Mauro Wolf. With Wolf, a visionary media sociologist, I wrote my thesis on Techniques of Radio and Television Language. It was the mid-1990s, and the debate around public and private broadcasting in Italy was fierce — politically, socially, and economically. Advertising was booming. It seemed like the perfect moment to launch a professional career in communications. But reality was different. At the time, Italy had no structured communications industry. No company — no matter how forwardthinking — was hiring young graduates. Career paths were vague and poorly defined — except perhaps for copywriters, art directors, and account executives in advertising. My first real challenge was figuring out how to build a peer relationship with top broadcasting decision-makers when I had no experience and no privileged contacts. So I chose journalism as my entry point, starting out at Millecanali, a monthly trade magazine widely considered the “bible” of the Italian radio and TV industry. Writing for Millecanali gave me access to both public and private broadcasters, and a front-row seat to observe an ecosystem in rapid transformation. During those years, the IT bubble exploded. Millecanali’s publishing group followed the evolution of this new market by launching new magazines, capitalizing on the wave of corporate investment in advertorials and media placements. There was growing demand for editorial content that could explain complex ideas in a simple, compelling way. For me, it was the perfect training ground — working at trade shows, developing editorial strategies, and learning how to stand out in a highly competitive space. It was during this time that I first encountered VideoAge International. I immediately appreciated its global perspective and began collaborating on projects tied to major international audiovisual events. Then came a turning point: I was invited for a short editorial residency in New York City at VideoAge’s office — previously home to the earliest iteration of Andy Warhol’s Factory. It was the perfect environment to absorb the American approach to marketing and to feed my ever-growing curiosity. Back then, the internet was still in its infancy. Still, it was a thrilling period. Allnews TV networks were emerging. Fiction production was booming all around Europe. Animation was blending with licensing, creating unexpected partnerships between East and West. Italy even contributed a global TV phenomenon: Rainbow’s Winx Club. And I was there to witness it all. A family emergency brought me back to Italy. The next decision: Milan or Bologna? I chose Bologna — even though I knew it offered fewer opportunities in my field. I needed a strategy to carve out a new professional role. That’s when I rediscovered Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy. With a project focused on promoting the legacy of Marconi — the entrepreneur who first demonstrated the possibility of wireless communication in the hills outside Bologna — I began working with local institutions. I collaborated with the Municipality of Sasso Marconi (home of the Marconi Foundation, under the Italian Ministry of Culture), the province of Bologna, and the Emilia-Romagna Region. In 2012, the municipality produced Italy’s first monthly podcast on cinema and audiovisual production for the public web radio RadioEmiliaRomagna.it. I curated the Marconi Radio Days festival, which ran for 13 editions. Our first guest was the veteran Italian journalist Enzo Biagi. Later, we welcomed RAI’s Roberto Morrione — the father of Italian allnews TV — whom I had met years earlier in New York City when he was director of RAI International. Working with a municipality also meant diving into political communications: electoral campaigns, managing social media, and crisis management — especially regarding environmental issues tied to industrial incidents. My earlier experience in IT proved valuable for adapting to the world of digital communications. I began working with companies — particularly in design, furniture, and new technologies — and also with institutions like ICEA, Italy’s national certification body for biological products. At ICEA, I managed communications during a sensitive governance transition, guiding the new board of directors through its public and internal repositioning. Then came 2020, the year of the pandemic. But also, the year I decided to bring together all my previous experiences: journalism, PR, advertising, consulting, training, events, and digital strategy. I joined the board of Pragmatika, a strategic communications and marketing agency active at the national level, now celebrating its 25th anniversary. Together with my partners Rossella Lucangelo and Enrico Salsi, we support clients in sectors such as food, industry, public administration, IT, financial tech, trade associations, and medium and small companies. The main challenges: As a journalist, my main challenges were earning access and credibility, as well as learning how to ask the right questions. In the public sector, the major issues I faced were communicating effectively while preserving institutional identity. In consulting and PR, they were simplifying complexity and making invisible results visible. Key accomplishments: In journalism my key accomplishments were writing for Millecanali and collaborating with VideoAge, including the unforgettable New York City experience. In the public sector, my successes included Marconi Radio Days and producing Italy’s first podcast on cinema for public radio. In PR, my achievements were working with my amazing colleagues at Pragmatika, as well as helping businesses and organizations design effective, measurable strategies. One particularly memorable experience was coordinating communications for the Emirate of Sharjah, guest of honor at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Today, I still consider myself a journalist at heart (I’ve been officially registered since 2009). And I’m currently developing the concept for an animated series (Guglielmo the Inventor) about Marconi and the invention of wireless communication, in collaboration with the production company Pop Cult. By Enzo Chiarullo From Journalist to Press Officer to PR Agent: Challenges in Media VIDEOAGE October 2025 A Communicator’s View
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