Mipcom 2015, content business shows its many faces

Spain is a market impacted by the irruption of DTTs that moved free TV offer from 5 to 40 channels. Though, Sergio Ramos, programming director of History Channel Iberia: ‘This is a very good moment for traditional Pay TV in Spain. There were mergers and now there are strong investments to improve business’.

Buyers have stressed lack of creativity in entertainment. In scripted, for some of them it is the same story. Berengere Terouanne, fiction manager, M6 France: ‘Fiction offer today is full of reruns and remakes. We are looking for fresh prime time series, first in USA and also in Europe’.

A long content king is pushing short ones. Ben Pyne, president of global distribution, Disney: ‘We are pleased with ABC Studios production, we’ve produced 15 very successful series in the last years. But the newest thing is Maker on Demand, short videos. Today it is a reality with big deals and more than 2,000 products. It is a big business to come, for mobile and youngest audiences’.

Though Turkish series boom, their distributors are producing entertainment formats. Ahmet Ziyalar, ITV Inter Medya: ‘A reason is diversification, by through our way: own produced and extremely selected formats, as Answer if you can: a quiz show very visual with physic or emotional obstacles for the participants’. 

A big studio is in favor of independents. Joe Patrick, Miramax: ‘Now buyers acquire differently. With so many quality products on the indy side, they check product by product, no big output deals. We prefer the new situation’.

Events and announcements yesterday? Red Arrow (Germany) and NTV (Japan) will co-develop brand new entertainment shows and reality formats for the global market. Zodiak Rights (UK) launched Humble Pie, a cooking show that offers a twist: after cooking three plates, four competitors ruthlessly critique each other's dishes. The winner will be the one that is able not only to have a culinary skill, but confidence and mental strength. 

At the Megasession Panel, Turkish Kanal D, ITV Inter Medya and prodco Ay Yapim agreed that the average length and cost of a series are 140 minutes and USD 300.000 per episode, and that the main focus is to create a 'local success'. Kim Moses, Sander/Moses USA (adapting Son, Eccho Rights, in ABC) and Juan Ignacio Vicente, Mega (Chile) added: 'Turkish series offer a twist: really dramatic situations (rapes: Fatmagul), moral debates (money for sex: 1001 Nights), modern sensibility (weapons: Son) and female empowerment'. 

Eurodata provided main figures about Turkey: the average viewing time in 2014 was 4:07 minutes in a market dominated by private TV. Fiction occupies 51% of the channels grid; on prime time, 86% is original programming, 11% adaptations and 3% foreign. The country exported USD 200 million in 2014 and expects to have USD 350 million this year.

Malaysian deputy minister of communication and multimedia, Dato’ Jailaini Johari is in Cannes for the first time, promoting the brand new Pitching Center. It will receive, fund and produce in his country international co-productions. He has also met Ibrahim Caglar, chairman, Istambul Chamber of Commerce (Turkey) and its delegation to discuss about the production of Islamic content. Caglar received yesterday the torch from Mexico, Country of Honour 2014. 

Big news about Latin America for the world: Telemundo International announced the global distribution of HBO Latin American Originals contents, except for the Americas. The catalogue is headed by brand new success TV series El Hipnotizador, but also includes 10 years of HBO original series in the region, from Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and other countries. 

Discovery Kids Latin America kicked the table by taking big Argentine names for three original animated series: teen producer Cris Morena (Chiquititas, etc.) in an animated version of Cinderella, Academy Award winning director Juan José Campanella, for a TV series based on the animated movie Metegol and also Baby Rockers, the three with Argentine producer Mundo Loco. Comarex (Mexico) has enlarged its distribution deal with Mediaset Italy for Asia and MENA, while it has started to distribute Canal 13 (Chile) catalogue. 

Nicolás Smirnoff, Fabricio Ferrara and Rodrigo Cantisano