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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