The two faces of Mipcom 2012

2012.10.11 | Today Mipcom 2012 comes to an end with an encouraging outcome, for most of the content industry: many opinions agree that it has been a show as the ones before the global crisis, till 2008. For the first time in five years, the attendance reached 13,000 people, and business volume has grown 15% from Mipcom last year. Though, crisis has not gone away for many European countries. The emergent markets are a strong engine.

Emilio Azcarraga Jean, CEO of Grupo Televisa, receiving the recognition of the “Personality of the Year” by former winner Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate, and Paul Zilk, CEO of Reed Midem

Jeff Lerner, SVP, scripted development & production, and Cheryl Lynch, SVP, business affairs, both from Sony USA; Alberto Ciurana, new president of programming, Univision (USA); Maria Lucia Hernandez, head of sales at RCN Colombia, and Jose “Pepe” Baston, VP of Television and Content at Grupo Televisa

Ben Pyne, president of Disney Media Distribution, with William Pfeiffer, CEO of Dragongate (producer of English and Asian-language films) and Marcel Fenez, Global leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers, both from Hong Kong

SIC, Portugal: Vanessa Fino Tierno, head of acquisitions; Joao Pedro Nava, distribution director; Sofia Moura, sponsorships; Pedro Fernández, new commercial director; and Luis Proenca, broadcast and programming director

Adriana Cisneros, Vice Chairman & VP of Cisneros Group of companies, with all Venevision International sales team: Manuel Perez, Cesar Diaz, Miguel Somoza and Daniel Rodriguez. Also, Peter Tinoco, president of Venevision Studios

Telemundo/France Televisions agreement: Gilles Camouilly, director of Antenna, France O; Benedicte Marchand, acquisitions France O; Xavier Aristimuño, Telemundo International; Yann Chappelon, chairman of France Television Distibution; and Luis Daniel Capriles, VP Digital Media Telemundo International

The FRAPA Awards: Ute Biernat, former president of the board at FRAPA and Patty Geneste, the new president, with the seven winners in different format categories

Antena 3, Spain: Mercedes Gamero Hoyos, acquisitions and sales director; Diana Borbon, acquisitions and sales executive; and Jose Salso, head of acquisitions and sales

Viacom, Russia: Lika Blank, general producer at MTV, and Anastasia Korchagina, head of acquisitions at MTV/2x2

Kompas TV, Indonesia: Bimo Setiawan, managing director, and Julie Wibowo, program acquisition manager. The channel emits 40% of entertainment and 60% of news/acknowledgment content

The event of this Wednesday was the Gala Dinner where Emilio Azcarraga Jean, CEO of Mexican Grupo Televisa, was honored as Personality of the Year by Reed Midem, with the attendance of 200 VIP executives of the industry. The news enhances the unusual relevance that Latin America has taken at this market.

Indeed, U.S. Hispanic Telemundo and France O (France Televisions) have signed an alliance that includes, from the former to the latter, a volume deal of 300 hours per year (for three years) and the selection of a “golden book” of a telenovela to produce in France, while the French company will distribute the ready made material (doubled to French language) both in the French speaking territories (West Indies, Indian Ocean, Martinique, etc.) and in the digital platforms.

Gilles Camouilly, antenna director of France O, remarked: ‘There is a new era on French television, where the TV channels are looking for long productions, and the Latin American distributors are specialists on the matter’.

FRAPA, the format protection and recognition association, offered its annual Format awards. The winners have been: “Best Factual Entertainment”, Lovetown, from BBC Worldwide; “Best Competition Reality Format”, Your Face Sounds Familiar, from Endemol; “Best comedy format”, Money From Strangers, All3Media; “Best Studio Based Gameshow”, The Bank Job, from Endemol; “Best Brand Driven Format”, Fashion Star, from Electus; “Best Scripted Format”, The Kitchen Musical, from Small World IFT; “Best Multi-Platform Format”, Who’s in, who’s out, from Sony.

Middle East: Fady Ismail, general manager at O3 Productions, MBC Group, said: ‘The best thing that happened to Arabic drama, is the Turkish drama, which has been able to break through the wall of conservatism in the Arab world’.

Spain: what is happening to the pay TV market, in the new DTT era? Sergio Ramos, programming director, History Channel: ‘The strategy is to keep business working till the situation gets more stable. Some of the current DTT channels will not survive this crisis, and we want to take a DTT license that gets free, then. Now, we are making a ‘restyling’ of the channel’.

Eastern Europe: Jovan MIlenkovic, Prava I Prevodi, Serbia: ‘For the former Yugoslavian territories, we are looking for TV series from Scandinavian countries, from Germany, from France. There, we’ve discovered, they have very good products, as the Studios ones’.

Difficult times? Arthur Yezekyan, president Shan TV, Armenia: ‘We’ve suffered an unexpectedly drop in our revenues this Summer, about 50%. We’ve cut many own production projects for two months, but we are producing content again’. Mathieu Bejot, president at TV France International, which gathers medium and small independent French producers: ‘Business is tough, nowadays’.

Yesterday we told that in Hungary, advertisement pie will be down again (10%) this year. Ricus Jansequers, SVP international programming Prosieben.SAT1 (Germany) for Central & Eastern Europe: ‘We don’t expect a recovery of the region in 2013. Hopefully, in 2014. Though, we are investing in new channels as in Hungary, betting on the future’.

Nicolas Smirnoff and Fabricio Ferrara

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