Mipcom 2016: What do the buyers want?

The organization says it has been about 1,000 people more, explaining that now the booths are more spread in different pavilions of the Palais. Opposite opinions think that the recent attacks could have reduced the attendance. In fact, companies trim expenses more than in the past: they attend with fewer members, etc. True, all the important companies have been in Cannes, there's no doubt about this.

What do the buyers want? Prensario has interviewed this week about 150 buyers, forming mainly two groups: the big ones that look for, above all, co-production projects in fiction and formats to generate own entertainment shows, and the main community that search for fresh products in the niches they are focused. Both groups nowadays are opened to non-traditional origins, even they like them going fresh. Drama gains good space, digital buyers grow on own content, while short and VR contents are just on their first steps.

Margarida Pereira, head of acquisitions, TVI Portugal: ‘Telenovela formats and shiny floor entertainment, which is a new thing’. Dario Turovelzky, programming director, Telefé Argentina: ‘All our content areas are now applied for international alliances’. Ryan Shiotani, VP Content, BBC Asia: ‘Science, tech documentaries and lifestyle’. Manuel Abud, CEO Azteca America: ‘Fresh factual. Real-alike stories’. 
Gordan Bobinac, KIP Croatia: ‘Out of the box products for my OTT platform, but providers usually think inside the box’. Sophi Djudzman, CEO RedCandle, Indonesia: ‘Series, animation and formats, but nothing is fresh’. Jaanus Noormets, acquisitions Kanal 2, Estonia: ‘Fresh content, all genres’. Ricardo Cruz, director of acquisitions, RCN Colombia: ‘Entertainment formats to produce in-house’.

Petra Bohuslavová, acquisitions manager, TV Nova Czech Republic: ‘Prime time programming, mainly movies’. Frank Holderied, head of acquisitions RedBull Media House (Austria): ‘Feature films, documentaries’. Ana Bond, SVP Business, W Studios (USA): ‘Fiction co-productions. We have 3-4 projects per year for Univision and to discuss with Televisa’. 

George Makris, programing director at Nova Croatia: ‘Entertainment formats and series, both’. Larissa Mohut, acquisitions manager, National TV Romania: ‘Movies, funny gags and TV series’. Felipe Boshell, production, Caracol Colombia: ‘International co-productions and to provide full ideas to third parties’. Martin Krivitskiy, programming director Friday TV, Russia: ‘Reality shows’. Laurynas Seskus, TV Play Lithuania: ‘Game shows and realities’. Cristian Gabela, StoryHouse/Univision (USA): ‘International co-productions’.

Trendy testimonies: Sergio Ramos, acquisitions at Canal Historia, Spain: ‘TV cable is at a good moment in our country, its penetration has grown from 20 to 30% due to Telefonica's Movistar Plus move. But the future is open because various big OTT systems are coming: HBO Go, Amazon and Sky’. Arthur Yezekyan, president, Shan TV, Armenia: ‘We are moving all our channel from SD to HD, a big change to continue leading our market’.

Nadav Palti, CEO Dorimedia (Israel): ‘We are producing 2-3 web episodes of 3-5 minutes each for vertical channels. We expect to produce 15 episodes per week soon. We target Generation Z, the next one after X and Y.  Content is fully two-way direction. We have 2 millions daily viewers’.

The biopic fictions are a new trend, especially in Latin America. We reported yesterday the big success of ‘Hasta que te conoci’, from Disney, TV series about Mexican singer Juan Gabriel. In South Cone, ‘Gilda’, a feature film about a popular Cumbia singer, with Natalia Oreiro is  big hit nowadays. Habitacion 1520, Telefe and Smilehood are its co-producers; Disney distributes the film and Smilehood is taking international partners to produce a miniseries based on the same project. 

Events: With 40 Chinese buyers confirmed, MIPChina 2017 (May 23-25) has been launched yesterday by Ted Baracos, director at Reed Midem. It will be held in Hangzhou, province of Zhejiang, where 20% of the Chinese drama and 25% of animation are produced. ‘More than 2,000 film and TV are based here. It is the second city after Beijing’, said Wang Guofu, from SAPPRFT Zhejiang. The event follows the one-to-one meetings format of MIPCancun, which will have its third edition this November.

Organized by INCAA and the Foreign Ministry of Argentina, “Snack n’ Screening” exhibited eight trailers of independent producers of the country, to about 100 buyers. The event seeks to promote co-production deals between Argentina and foreign countries.  

Nicolás Smirnoff, Fabricio Ferrara and Rodrigo Cantisano