BCM 2017: new narrative ways become reality

All in all, there were very positive comments and it was highlight that BCM is a good place to meet buyers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, the northern Asia. While there are not much buyers from South East Asia, it was noticed a bigger group of buyers from Vietnam this year, but smaller from Indonesia.

The second day of the show was better than the first one: many buyers arrived yesterday and stay at the market for only one or one and a half day. The rhythm of meetings and the movement in the corridors were completely different compared to the first day.

Korean providers took the scene at Bexco, but they are no longer alone: producers and distributors from Asia and Europe enlarge their presence year to year, which is good for the buyers as they have a bigger programming offering from different origins. For example, newcomer’s booths from Sky Perfect (Japan), which launched new dramas, and TVN (Poland), highlighting dramas and lifestyle shows, were very active.

Virtual Reality and Formats were the two hot topics at MIP Academy sessions yesterday. The first one, in charge of Matthias Puschmann, MD of German-base Vast Media highlighted the new ways of narrative brought by VR and he exemplified with several cases: Mr Robot (USA Network), which offered the first global VR simulcast; Halycon (SyFy), which provided a 13-minute flashback before the series begin; 24 Legacy (FOX), which produced a VR prequel exclusive for Samsung glasses.

But not only dramas… also, The Satchel, a 4-part miniseries from Investigation Discovery, which was offered through DiscoveryVR.com and other websites of the group, sponsored by Toyota; Virtually Mike & Nora, a lifestyle show from Hulu in which the audience can be part of the life of this couple; and Note on blindness: into darkness, a 6-part sensory feeling of being blind by European ARTE.  

‘It all depends on the type of experience the audience want to be involved. From project to project, it varies the levels of interactivity and immersion. These are successful examples of how we can narrate stories in a different way. It can be inside a TV program (The Voice), or could be a separated show, news/documentaries, live events/sports streaming or fictional storytelling’, he said.

Late in the afternoon, Virginia Mouseler, from The Wit (Switzerland) offered the classic Fresh TV presentation in which she highlighted the most important trends on the entertainment format business: couple crises, game shows and dating shows are the most important ones.

Among the first ones, Marry if you can, from Telefe (Argentina) is a good example: it gathers couples about to get married that are separated and living together with other couples; Mirror of Truth, from TV3 (Latvia) and distributed by NBCUniversal; and One night with my ex, from TwoFour Rights (UK). All them are very intense and emotional.

On the game show side, The Phone Secret, from Mediaset Italy offers a twist showing couples that agree to see their couple’s phone to find if they are cheating or not; The Bridge (ESG, Spain) and The Bravest (Banijay, Denmark). Lastly, the dating show Hotel Romantiek (TNFP, Belgium) is a good proposal. Mixing both genres, game show + dating, comes The Game of Dating (Passion Distribution, USA) and Game of Clones (The Story Lab, UK).

Fabricio Ferrara, from Busan