Mipcom 2014: the future, a bit clearer

Maria Laura Mozzetti, major acquisitions Fox Channels Italy: ‘In fact, the pay TV channels and the big digital platforms as Netflix need each other. They use our successes, our production feeds with their consumes’. Richard Rohrbach, VP Acquisitions Fox Channels Latin America: ‘In the past, we didn’t know what to do about Internet rights. Now the picture is clear. Fox Play, the on demand service of our contents, is a priority. We are adding regular catch-up services of most of the top TV series of our channels’.

Shigeko Chino, senior director, international business development, NTV Japan: ‘We produce two types of formats: celebrity talk shows and edutainment for our local market, docu-realities/factual and physical game shows for the international arena’. Geography diversifies format business.

Hungary is an example of a bad use of the future. A top broadcaster executive say: ‘The analogue switch off took place last November and today the market has more than 100 channels available, all now TDTs, with big brands entering. At the same time, the Government has established new taxes for the traditional broadcasters, which run till 40% of the bills. We are a group of free and pay TV channels, and they said that we can’t charge the pay TV channels for the first digital year. But now when it is time to charge, they set up a new law against… we don’t know what we will be allowed to do. We keep betting on the future, though’.

Brazil is the opposite story. Manoel Rangel, president Ancine, main public Theatrical and TV entity in Brazil: ‘ABPI/Brazilian TV Producers is celebrating 10 years promoting our production industry in the world. The recent audiovisual law, which sets up local & independent quotas for the prime time of pay TV channels, has generated an explosion of co-production projects between Brazilian producers and foreigner titans. We want to include free TV in this move. Also, we’ve directly invested about USD 100 millions in private productions’.

Mipcom news: The announcement of Turkey as Mipcom 2015 ‘Country of Honour, was held yesterday at the booth of Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, which will be handling the organization and attendance of the Turkish delegation. The members of the chamber held meetings with the many strong distributors of the country to synergize actions for the future.

As every year, Virginia Mouseler, CEO, The Wit (Switzeland) presented its Fresh TV selection, highlighting four drama series: The Refugees (La Sexta Spain & BBC Worldwide), 100 Code (Red Arrow, Germany & Sweden), Eyewitness (NRK1, Norway), and Sexpert (Lucky Road, Spain/Los Angeles), which was the first scripted format selected without even being produced.

Mexican broadcaster titans, Televisa and Azteca, make focus on entertainment formats. ‘Televisa has sold its new format Stand Up to 14 Western European countries, just during this Mipcom. Our entertainment formats side has exploded’, told Ricardo Ehrsam, head of Televisa Europe. Azteca has made yesterday a deal with Spanish producer 7 y Accion to produce three entertainment formats, one for the Mexican market and the other for international. ‘The future of content is to think internationally quality’, said Rodrigo Fernandez, general director Azteca.

What do the buyers look for at Mipcom? Ruediger Boess, ProSiebenSat1, Germany: ‘Prime time dramas, also sitcoms, but drama are the tops. Mostly, American’. Roxanne Barcelona, GMA The Philippines: ‘Movies and Korean dramas. We are producing 24-26 fiction titles per year’. Anastasia Korchagina, Friday TV Russia: ‘Formats, own production is our new thing’.

Vivian Yin, Star TV China: ‘Fresh formats. With MIPformats, MIPTV is better than Mipcom for this’. Syahrizan Mansor, Nickelodeon Asia: ‘Fresh animation’. Larisa Mohut, National TV Romania: ‘Ready made TV series and feature films’. Rozario Agnes, Astro Malaysia: ‘We produce 25 TV series per year, mainly short ones’.

Branko Cakarmis, ProPlus Slovenia: ‘Innovative entertainment formats, which are very hard to find’.  Giorgi Lominadze, Rustavi 2, Georgia: ‘We’ve launched a ladies channel this October, Marao. I’m buying female oriented TV series, shows, documentaries, etc’. Jesus Torres, Telemundo (USA): ‘Our network is more open now for productions from new origins. Mipcom is more important now than in the past’.

Hugo Aloy, SevenTV: ‘We are launching two TV channels for Africa: one about telenovelas, other with movies, TV series’. Alvaro Gazzolo, IMC (USA): ‘We are buying for Digicel, we will launch a new pay TV channel in the Caribbean region, with varied, mainly American, programming’.

Nicolas Smirnoff, Fabricio Ferrara y Rodrigo Cantisano