Reed Midem, the organisers of the international television programme market MIPTV, must have thanked the gods that the Icelandic volcano did not rain its extensive cloud of ash on its parade in Cannes, France, last week. Instead the Icelandic volcano held off till business was pretty well done on Friday 16 April.
At the traditional MIPTV press conference, Laurine Garaude, the director of MIPTV, said the market maintained its 2009 base of 11,500 participants, including some 4,000 buyers. In 2009 during the global economic turndown, MIPTV suffered a 14% decrease in its numbers.
This year was marked by an absence of the South Africa stand which has been organised for a number of years by the National Film and Video Foundations. There was also a dramatic drop in South Africans attending MIPTV.
Garaude was upbeat about the global television industry. “In terms of the economy, we see a recovery. The industry is adapting to the changing environment.”
Constrained budgets have changed the emphasis to coproductions and partnerships. MIPTV catered for this at the Producers’ Forum which included a session on coproduction and featured a high powered panel – ITV Studios’ Lee Bartlett, E1’s John Morayniss, MGM’s Gary Marenzi, Myriad Entertainment’s Lisa Zeff and NHK Enterprises’ Yukihiko Amagi – who provided an insight to the benefits and challenges of international coproduction.
The Producers’ Forum also included sessions on key Asian territories that are keen to co-produce with the worldwide market.
Coproduction also received a strong thumbs-up from Starz chief Chris Albrecht’s keynote on Monday, 12 April. “If you want to monetize your show, you have to approach the programme from a global perspective,” he stated. He said it was impossible to make significant money by producing for only one’s domestic market.
Among the coproductions that were announced at MIPTV this week were the dramas Pompeii, World Without End and The Medici. Japan’s NHK and Al Jazeera Children’s Channel will partner on a children’s series Doctor Science; DQ, Method Animation, Story Board Animation and France Televisions will collaborate on The New Adventures of Peter Pan. Televisa Internacional and CCTV have a telenovela for the Chinese market in the pipeline
