NATPE Miami 2016: the American hub gets stronger

It was noticed a good presence of buyers from Europe, who highlighted that coming to NATPE Miami allow them to reach and meet more content providers and to have access to fresh shows in comparison with the options they find in the European tradeshows.

While L.A. Screening in May is the reference for Major Hollywood programming, NATPE Miami is a varied stop for all-size producers and distributors. For the biggest European players, the trend of international alliances (co-production, co-finance, co-development) also attract them to Miami. Some of them are producing in the US to generate similar products to Hollywood, but more related to their market needs.

During the last editions of the MIPs in Cannes, some European broadcasters have warned about a programming “gap” between the new U.S. programming (more Pay TV-alike) and their more traditional programming needs. NATPE Miami is a good space to work over this difference.

Along the Fontainebleu corridors, Prensario checked buyers from Germany, France, UK, Portugal, Spain, Nordics about Europe, and Korea, The Philippines, China, about Asia. For instance, for the Scandinavian acquisitions and programming executives, the attractive of NATPE Miami has grown significantly the last years.

Other buyers are focused on building bridges with Latin America, such us the Filipino ones, which have played in NATPE a double role as buyers and sellers. Their drama series are doing well in South East Asia and Africa and they want to expand their distribution towards Latin America. Indian distributors, too.

NATPE Miami attendees are 35% from the domestic US TV market, 50% from Latin America and the remaining 15% from the rest of the world, especially from Europe. These former ones whispered that if the market would not be organized in Miami, they would not attend because it would become more expensive and long.

Latin America is always a great protagonist of Natpe Miami. Its main distributors organized some of the most attractive parties and presentations. Telemundo and Globo screenings were the most commented among buyers with high-end products and settings. All in all, fiction offer from Latin companies is becoming more sophisticated in stories and production values, with a more international appeal --shorter fictions and more universal themes. They are also betting strongly on developing entertainment formats, in order to expand to new markets.

On the contrary, the region is much more opened to fiction titles from different origins. Turkish drama has settled in most of the markets, especially during 2015, and the Asian fiction (Korean dramas mostly) is entering the region far better than in previous years.

At the Closing Conference, Rod Perth, CEO & president, NATPE highlighted the market is ‘healthy’ and, even he did not mention any figure about the attendance, he confirmed that the exhibiting market floor tripled its size in 2016. There were 65 new sellers from more than 30 countries. In total, 250 companies exhibited at NATPE Miami with 71 countries represented.

Perth, who took over NATPE presidency in 2012, will left the company next month and will be replaced by JP Bommel, managing director y COO, who confirmed NATPE Miami 2017 for January 17-19 at the Fontainebleau and Eden Rock. Same week, same format. Both executives also remarked the re-launch of NATPE Europe, which returns to Budapest after two years in Prague (Czech Republic).

Prensario considers that all in all the number of attendees of NATPE Miami 2016 has been 5,500, within 1,500 buyers. If the event continues in Miami after 2017, when the contract with the hotel is finished, organizers and participants expect that more European and Asian programmers attend the show.

Nicolas Smirnoff, Fabricio Ferrara and Alejo Smirnoff