English
Natpe Budapest 2017: pushing the walls
During its four days, Natpe Budapest showed the new reality of a growing region, and little by little began to create the basis of its recovery as a strategic event for the region. The organization confirmed Budapest as location for 2018 and 2019.Almost 400 buyers assisted, but two things stood out: By one hand, the diversity of buyers from all the countries of the region, including public broadcasters, commercial, Pay TV and OTT platforms like Pantaflix (Germany) or MediaLabs (Russia) and, on the other hand, that they arrived to ‘do business’.
To achieve this, the organization added two new strategies; firstly, it gave a free registration to those who wanted to add executives for the US major screenings, allowing the same company to attend both the market and the screenings. Secondly, they launched a new counseling matchmaking system for buyers and sellers. ’42 new companies from 30 countries were added this year, and most of them do not know who sells what, or who buys what. So we launched a platform where three experts in the region offered their knowledge and gave the participants a brief introduction of who was who. We are planning to do this in Miami too’, describes JP Bommel, CEO.
Among the new participants, there were companies from Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Monaco. ‘It is a global local market’, emphasizes Bommel, and adds: ‘It is an underestimated region, with great products and high-quality shows. We want to take local content for global stage and push the walls’.
Tibor Forzis, director of content acquisition, RTL Hungary: ‘The region is starting to be what it used to. Companies are buying again and searching new formats for their own markets, especially in countries like Hungary, Ukraine, and Poland’.
In terms of evolution, even when each country has its singularity and some trends like the expansion of the OTT services and coproduction are issues that still need to be worked on, CEE is starting to change. The market is again opening to some regions like Latin America but also new ones, and public broadcasters are more open to new opportunities and strategies similar to commercial networks.
The truth is that each crisis means opportunities and the opportunity to resurge is over the table. It is necessary to work hard and keep boosting the local industries in order to turn this revival into a concrete and stable reality, but the future is more than promising.
Rodrigo Cantisano, from Budapest