LA Screenings 2017: ups & downs of fitting the multiplatform era

Outcome? This 2017 was a good edition, with active attitude from buyers and varied product to attend the challenges of new media ecosystem. Local content is a big main goal, but also to refresh the screen with product of new origins and to reduce costs, both at non-scripted and scripted, with clever solutions.

About major genre tips, Hollywood studios mainly insisted on their traditional icons -doctors, lawyers, cops- and the twists go through the narration mode, new themes within and especially, the insertion of technology to reinforce old tasks: to save patients, catch killers, etc. Also, the super-natural stories continued having a good role, while the news were military series, which were much more than in the past, some good and some not.

Prensario surveyed more than 100 worldwide buyers, and the TV contents most well commented, were: ‘The Residents’ at Fox, as a medical series which makes focus on bad praxis; the format ‘Candy Crush’ at Lionsgate, according to the new global trend of shiny floor game shows; ‘Wisdom of the crowd’ at CBS, as a crime series where a genius creates an app to find killers faster; ‘The Brave’ at NBCUniversal, as one of the best military series, with good drama inside; ‘Black Lighting’, a new based DC Comics series, at Warner; ‘SWAT’, as a strong remake at Sony. And we have ‘Siren’ at Disney’s FreeForm, as an example of multiplatform series for the new audiences.

The market is clearly divided in three types of buyers: free TV, pay TV and OTT. Most of Hollywood studios have taken as strategy to be a ‘One stop shopping’, with products for each segment. TV series produced for OTTs, premium series, traditional series for basic cable, local content and entertainment formats for free TV. The hardest fight takes place between premium cable and OTTs, which compete for the same best product and original, exclusive content. Free TV players suffer to be at the back in the windows role, and due to usual crisis of their countries that affect their financial performance.

But as we’ve seen the last two MIP markets, everybody has a plan of actions to move forward. So, business traffic is up within the three kinds of buyers. Among the initiatives, a main one is co-production ventures -broadcasters, Pay TV and OTTs are extremely interested- but also to vary providers, looking for fresh products and to improve deal conditions. This way, we see even at bigger players, content from non-traditional origins, independent films and unusual genres.

Broadcasters make efforts to produce original content reducing costs. About entertainment, they promote production hubs in convenient countries. About fiction, shooting in territories with tax incentives. For example, for Lionsgate’s ‘Candy Crush’, Spanish La Competencia has set up a hub in Spain, to feed Europe. For Endemol Shine’s ‘The Wall’, to be aired in NBC, a Polish hub was chosen. About fiction tax advantages, USA usually shoots in Canada and Latin America; Spain in Canarias Islands; France in Belgium.

Other global trends? The paper formats are steadily back. There is a so strong need for fresh content, that players don’t ask proven products any more. If they are proven, they are fresh. This opens good opportunities to new ideas and providers. Second, about genres, the big game shows are back at the European prime time, as we’ve stressed lines above. ‘Candy Crush’, ‘The Wall’ and Talpa’s ‘Five Gold Rings’ have been mentioned from MIPTV as three shiny floor formats that lead the trend. ‘Playgrounds are clever now’, it was described.

Watching the future, the main challenge for the content industry is to evolve deeper onto new tech times. Some Hollywood studios, to mention big examples, continue doing the same as 10 years ago. Though today they can handle products for OTTs, their evolution is just latent about real multiplatform contents, short content, web series, etc. There is no launch of separated labels, to assure product feed. Just Disney has FreeForm, but not much more. Of course, European format titans, big Pay TV titans, tech independent players, have very good experiences about, but for the industry as a whole, almost everything is to be done.

‘Keep moving forward’, it was said in a fresh animated movie, about how to deal with innovation. 

Nicolás Smirnoff and Rodrigo Cantisano