nEWswww.mipcom.comOctober 2011

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This report gives you a snapshot of the international multi-platform television industry, as reflected in market activity during MIPCOM 2011. It is written exclusively for MIPCOM and MIPJunior delegates by editor in chief Julian Newby, and reporters Andy Fry and Emelia Jones

Market takes on festival feel as stars line up in Cannes

Industry leaders focus on the future

IF MIPCOM delegates were as-ked to identify a dominant theme of this year’s market, they might well say it was ‘optimism’. A sold-out Palais and a crowded Croisette together signaled an industry on the upturn — and a roster of A-list talent in Cannes, reflected that mood. The statis-tics tell the story: over 12,600 de-legates from 4,400 companies and 102 countries were in Cannes for MIPCOM 2011.Sunday saw British comedian and actor Eddie Izzard in Cannes for RHI Entertaiment’s mini-series Treasure Island; and E-Street Band guitarist-turned-actor Steven Van Zandt, for SevenOne International’s light-hearted Mafia series Li-lyhammer. Appearances later

in the week from the cast of Endemol and eOne’s new dra-ma series Hell On Wheels; Tom Stoppard and producer David Parfitt, screenwriter and produ-cer of the BBC’s Parade’s End; actor Kiefer Sutherland, star of Fox’s Touch and its creator Tim

Kring; and Ashley Judd, star of Disney/ABC’s Missing; film di-rectors Werner Herzog and Paul Verhoeven and other lea-ding names from the world of cinema, underscored the ever-closer relationship between big and small screen.

Returning for a second year, the MIPCOM World Premiere TV Screenings saw the international debut of ABC Studio’s Missing, the red-carpet screening at-tended by star cast members in-cluding Judd, Cliff Curtis and Adriano Giannini.

ICONIC film company Mira-max made a first appearance at MIPCOM and CEO Mike Lang, in his Media Mastermind keynote —  in the company of Netflix’s Ted Sarandos — urged delegates to listen to the consu-mer. “When consumers tell you what they want, figure out a way to give it to them. Because they will figure out a way to get it.” Another Media Mastermind keynoter, Viacom’s Bob Bakish, stressed the importance of re-search, “market by market, de-mographic-by-demographic”. Later keynoters, Disney’s Anne Sweeney —  MIPCOM’s Perso-nality Of The Year — and Fox’s Kevin Reilly, stressed the conti-nuing importance of television. “It turns out that the next big thing is going to include the same old big thing: TV,” he said, adding: “The web — in both content and creation — is showing its limitations, which has reaffirmed the value of pre-

mium TV content.” And for Sweeney: “Television is the most powerful medium in the world. Tomorrow it will also be the most personal.” She added: “Te-levision is the medium around which all others revolve. Digital didn’t weaken the power of te-levision, it unleashed it.”For YouTube’s Patrick Walker, to-morrow is already here, his video-sharing platform now receiving three billion views a day and 600 million unique visitors a month.

In the session Tales From The Cloud: Here Comes Ultraviolet, the Ultraviolet common file for-mat was explained to delegates. A central database of digital rights will allow registered users —  and their households — to access content stored in the cloud. The Ultraviolet alliance is backed by some 70 companies including Hollywood studios and technology companies. Prior to Bakish’s keynote, Mar-cel Fenez, global leader, enter-

tainment and media, unveiled the conclusions of the PwC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2011-2015 study. Fenez advised future media companies to position themselves as colla-borative digital enterprises, who are prepared to work with others to reach consumers. “Those who have digital collaboration in their DNA…will be the frontrunners of the entertain-ment and media industry in 2015,” he said.

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Missing’s Ashley Judd

Disney/ABC’s Anne Sweeney

Touch’s Kiefer Sutherland

Fox’s Kevin Reilly

Treaure Island’s Eddie Izzard

Miramax’s Mike Lang

funding and internationalisation

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Market focuses on funding and confirms global reach

Deals reflect global diversity

NEW WAYS of funding pro-gramming were examined du-ring MIPCOM. In a session on crowd funding, Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick said that for independent filmmakers, the old ways of funding “aren’t working so well. So we have to put our faith in the wisdom of the crowd.” In a session on alter-native sources of finance, Erich Parker of chemical giant DuPont explained how, with Ogilvy Entertainment, the BBC and National Geo-graphic, it had switched from traditional advertising to content creation, aligning it-self “with people who solve problems”. MIPCOM 2011 reflected the continuing globalisation of the media and content industries. A new Chinese Pavilion appeared at MIPCOM 2011, its 52 Chinese companies representing a 56% increase on 2010. Malaysian companies announced

over $70m worth of deals, and to top a busy week, left Cannes with the country’s first-ever Emmy nomination for the series Saladin, produced by MDeC with Al Jazeera. Japan came under the spot-light once again during the third MIPCOM Buyers’ Award For Japanese Drama event, which saw NHK’s

Threads Of Our Hearts take the coveted prize. In the words of Reed MIDEM’s Television Division director Laurine Garaude: “It’s clear that TV in all its forms is more international than ever before. The need for complex par-tnerships, across all platforms and territories, reinforces MIP-COM’s mission.”

THE GLOBAL production powerhouses all racked up for-mat deals at MIPCOM. Sony Pictures Television’s Russian team announced it will produce 40 episodes of sitcom The King Of Queens for CTC while Shine International sold Russian for-mat rights for the BBC’s The Magicians to Endemol’s Rus-sian subsidiary WeiT Media. Endemol sold Odd One In to Cuatro in Spain while ITV Stu-dios secured format deals for Come Dine With Me, Dancing On Ice and Four Weddings. Ba-nijay sold branded entertain-ment format Date My Car to Chinese online TV portal Qiyi while Israel’s Armoza Formats sold reality format, 24/7 Love Lab, to Viasat.Another Japanese giant Fuji TV

was in Cannes with eight for-mats, and reported strong buyer interest. Highlights included Total Blackout developed with FremantleMedia.Jon Voight appears in many dis-guises in a new children’s series, Baby Geniuses: Baby Squad In-vestigators (26 x 22 mins). Starz Media Worldwide Distribution acquired the international sales rights from its creator, Crystal Sky, it was announced at MIP-COM. Baby Squad Investiga-tors is an extension of the film franchise Crystal Sky’s Steven Paul began with the 1999 film Baby Geniuses.Digital deals were abundant. Netflix content chief Ted Sa-randos was in town and took the opportunity to seal an out-put deal with Osiris and an ac-

quisition deal for Steven Van Zandt’s Lilyhammer. As the market closed, Netflix also sea-led a deal for Zodiak Media Group’s Being Human (US and UK versions). Orange acquired World Cities 3D for VOD plat-forms in five territories while iConcerts sealed a rare connec-ted TV distribution deal with hardware giants Samsung, Toshiba Europe, LG, Philips and Panasonic.MIPCOM sees its fair share of channel distribution deals. Sun-dance announced its launch on Astro Malaysia; A+E’s History is debuting this autumn in 40 million Indian homes; and East Africa-based Wananchi Group is to carry Fox International Channels on its PayTV plat-form Zuku.

FOCUS ON RUSSIAMIPCOM’s Focus On Russia initiative, in association with Channel One Russia, Red Square Media, Central Partnership, RT, Russia Cinema Fund and X-Media, brought senior executives from 160 Russian companies to Cannes — a 20% increase on last year. In a keynote speech, Konstantin Ernst, CEO of leading broadcaster Channel One, urged all mainstream channels to “take their cultural role seriously”.

A three-day event, Focus On Russia offered delegates a series of panels and events staged at the Russia House next to the Palais, which aimed to educate international delegates about Russia’s fast-growing media industry.

A Russia-focused MIPCOM sparked a number of Russia-focused deals, featuring Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution and Russian broadcasters TNT, CTC and TV3; Sony Pictures Television (SPT) and CTC; and Endemol’s Russian operation WeiT Media and Rossiya 1, MUZ-TV, TV3, CTC and REN-TV.

The Focus On Russia Talk Show, with host Vladimir Pozner, welcomed leading Russia media figures including: Channel One’s Konstantin Ernst and Alexander Fayfman; CTC Media’s Anton Kudrayshov; Red Square Group’s Ilya Krivitsky; central Partnership’s Mark Lolo; Sony Pictures’ Maria Smirnova; and RT’s Margarita Simonyan.

Dupont’s Erich Parker MDeC’s Kamil Othman, producer of Saladin

deals

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Majors enjoy busy market as world shows thirst for content

All trade routes open in Cannes

CONCERNS about the global economy didn’t disrupt deal-ma-king at MIPCOM 2011. The US majors generated significant bu-siness around both completed shows and formats. Disney sold new drama Missing to 80 territo-ries; buyers including Fox Chan-nels Italy, AXN Spain and Por-tugal, Digiturk Turkey and a slew of Scandinavian networks. Fittingly, given the Russian focus at MIPCOM, Fox signed deals with TNT, CTC and TV3 for Russian versions of four shows including Malcolm In The Middle.ZDF Enterprises had a strong market with drama The Killing, sold to the BBC, Channel One Russia and Kino/Canal+ Po-land. ITV Global racked up 30 sales for Prime Suspect US in markets like New Zealand, Asia and Scandinavia. Nine Network Australia bought the series, and also secured BBC Worldwide drama Parade’s End.One of the market’s most interes-ting properties was M6’s TV ver-sion of the Transporter film franchise. The English-language series sold briskly at MIPCOM with EuropaCorp closing deals in Australia, Russia, Spain, Ja-pan, Poland and Korea. Another

sign of French interest in the English-language market was the launch of Gaumont Internatio-nal Television, based in Los An-geles.The changing face of drama fi-nance was evident when eOne and Viasat Broadcasting entered a co-venture for upcoming dra-ma series The Firm, based on John Grisham’s novel. The deal marks Viasat Broadcasting’s first foray into distribution financing and sees it pick up broadcast rights in multiple territories for its networks.A+E Networks racked up 450 hours of sales to broadcasters

including Seven Network Aus-tralia and W9 in France for shows like Pawn Stars. Other fac-tual-based distribution saw FME secure volume deals around Ja-mie Oliver titles in the Nether-lands and Germany; All3Media International sell its history slate to DR2  Denmark; and Rive Gauche licence reality series My Strange Addiction to networks such as Yes Israel and Fox Crime/True Corp. Thailand. Thematic channels were busy; Sky Italia acquired 100 hours from Electric Sky and Fine Living Network (ex-US) secured 500 hours from various sources.

DEALS made during MIP-COM 2011 revealed a truly in-ternational, border-free market for content. Shine International sold 200 hours to Discovery Latin Ameri-ca while Lionsgate unveiled a La-tAm distribution venture to sell shows including Mad Men and Nurse Jackie. China’s Huace Film & TV secured South American sales for Blue Love via a par-tnership with Latin Media Cor-poration. Among Eastern Euro-pean headlines, Daro Film Distribution acquired action mo-

vies from Motion Picture Corpo-ration of America for Central and Eastern Europe while DCD Rights sold the format for Penn & Teller: Fool Us to STB Ukraine.There was a strong showing from Malaysia, which closed 16 co-production and distribution deals worth $70m. Also signifi-cant was news that CNPLUS Production, the joint venture between Japan’s Nippon Televi-sion Network (NTV) and CTI Television (CTI) in Taiwan, has moved into development on its first production, Love In Hands.

East-West collaboration was evident when CCTV9 Docu-mentary Channel entered its first international deal with France’s Kwanza to co-produce documentary The Himalayan Gold Rush.The Japanese were back in force after the horror of the tsunami earlier this year. NHK had a slate of documentaries dealing with aspects of the tragedy. The Japanese were also buying, with PayTV broadcaster Wowow ma-king a rare UK acquisition, Hat Trick’s comedy Episodes.

Disney/ABC’s Missing, MIPCOM’s World Premiere TV Screening, sold to 80 territories

ACCELERATE YOUR BUSINESSREED MIDEM announced two new developments for MIPCOM’s sister market MIPTV. Head of entertainment Anne de Kerckhove announced MIPCube: Architects Of The Future, which will see MIPTV 2011’s Connected Creativity initiative evolve into “a discovery space for delegates to experience the future of TV in all its forms”. MIPCube will be one of three MIP Accelerators, along with MIPFormats and MIPDoc.

Warner Bros. announced a partnership with MIPFormats that will see the company commit up to $25,000 of development funding for the winner of the MIPFormats 2012 Fresh Talent Pitch. MIPFormats is the largest gathering of the world’s leading producers, commissioners, buyers, distributors and creators of breakthrough formats.

MIPDoc is a two-day screenings and trading event for producers and distributors of documentaries and factual programmes for TV, film, internet and digital media.

DIGITAL MINDS SUMMITMIPCOM’s Digital Minds Summit raised “more questions than it provided answers” according to one attendee. And that was the point of the event. Bringing together VIP participants from around the world, the Summit raised issues posed by the rise of social networks and connected TV and looked for consensus on how the industry will move forward. Companies represented included BBC Worldwide, Disney Media Networks, Havas, Hulu, ITV, TF1, Endemol, Facebook, Korea Telecom,  MBC, NFB, Ogilvy, Orange, Paramount Digital, Samsung, Sky, RTE, RTL  Starz Media,  Yahoo, Vivendi, YouTube, and ZodiakActive. PwC’s Marcel Fenez said: “It’s all about risk-taking and who takes it, and who pays for it — you can never prepare yourself better for risk, you just have to take it.”

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Packed MIPJunior underlinesstrong market for kids content

Junior and beyond: kids shows go global

MIPJUNIOR broke records this year. For the first time atten-dance was over 1,000 — up 25% on 2010 — with 1,092 titles listed in the programme ca-talogue. Programmes from France and Ca-nada accounted for eight of the 10 most-requested screenings. The MIPJunior Li-censing Challenge was won by Mia And Me, the $8.3m CGI/live-action series created by Germany’s m4e, which saw off competition from over 50 entries. The Kids Jury was back again, which saw 18 pupils from the in-ternational school in Nice voting for children’s programming in a range of categories. Winners were Dig Deep Creek from Aus-tralia’s 1440 Productions; Hick-City from China’s Fanatwild Animation; and Patch Pillows from France’s Cyber Group Stu-dios, which also took a special prize as producer of the pro-

gramme the sponsor, Carousel, liked the best. Carousel is the new kids’ channel owned by Channel One Russia. Kidscreen, ContentA-sia, Total Licensing and Worldscreen’s TV Kids were also sponsors.During the MIPJunior Books To TV Ex-change strand, in par-tnership with the Lon-don Book Fair, Helen McAleer of Walker Books urged publishers and producers to start

working together early in the creation process. Publisher Emma Cairns Smith of Egmont said publishers should look for four key things in a TV show: good story arcs, a unique voice, rich locations and characters. The MIPJunior keynote was from Warner Bros. Animation’s Sam Register, a MIPCOM first-timer, who discussed the issues he faced trying to make Bugs Bunny — and other Looney Tunes characters — relevant to the 21st century.

LONG before the Palais doors opened, kids studios were inking deals at MIPJunior in the Martinez hotel. Hasbro Studios was among the first to strike gold, selling a slate of shows to Turkish broadcaster ATV for its new kids channel Mini-ka. Millimages was also quick out of the blocks, licensing animated pre-school series Mouk to The Walt Disney Company EMEA for multi-territory use.Among headline deals, Viacom International Media Networks sold Kung Fu Panda: Legends Of Awesomeness to broadcasters in-cluding Brazil (TV Globo), Ma-laysia (NTV7), Spain (TVE), Swe-den (TV4) and Thailand (BBTV7). Guru Distribution sold kids dance-along series Pop It! to Por-tugal’s SIC while Studio100 Media

also had a strong market, licensing a slate of shows including Maya The Bee to French/Swiss broad-caster Radio TV Suisse Kids is a truly global business as MIPJunior and MIPCOM 2011 demonstrated. Japan’s Toei Ani-mation launched animated series Toriko while Tfou and Alphanim of France sealed a deal on Cali-mero (104 x 11mins CGI). DQ Entertainment sold 3D CGI se-ries 5 And It to Qatar’s jcctv.net, Nick India and Global TV In-donesia (the latter also buying Iron Man and Caspar The Frien-dly Ghost). At the same time, Canada-based distributor Hola Entertainment sold Chilean kids animation comedy series Zum-bastico Fantastico to Cartoon Network Latin America.

MIPJunior is a great forum for co-production deals. Philippines-based animation studio Top Draw Animation signed a co-production pact with Catalonia-based Stor Fisk for Fungi while Spanish com-pany Elastic Rights signed a co-production deal with Argentina’s Resonant TV for new teen series Lola, Muse In Training. The deals kept pouring in during MIPCOM, with Scrawl Studios coming on-board Cyber Group Studios CGI series Zou as a co-pro partner.MIPJunior ended with a screening of Korean animation Leafie, A Hen Into The Wild, produced by Myung Films and Odoltogi Studio and distributed by Seoul-based Finecut, fol-lowed by the MIPJunior closing party, sponsored by KOCCA.

THE FUTURE IN 3DDURING Sony’s Creating A New 3D Entertainment Experience series of conferences and screenings, Sony Corp’s Akira Shimazu said that 3D’s days as an entertainment gimmick are over. Almost 70% of Japanese homes have 3D-capable televisions, that figure at between 40-50% in other major markets. 3D screenings included Sky’s natural history series, Kew 3D, shot at the Botanical Gardens in Kew, with veteran broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. This and other screenings were made possible by the installation, in the Palais des Festivals, of the latest 3D projection technology, Sony’s 4K SXRD digital cinema projector. Sky 3D’s John Cassy said of the film: “Watching a flower bloom in 3D as time lapses is extraordinary.”

FRANCE GETS ANIMATEDFRENCH animation made headlines at MIPCOM.

The Walt Disney Company EMEA bought the animated series Mouk from France-based Millimages for the Disney Junior network in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Paris-based Studio100 Animation’s 3D versions of animated series Maya The Bee, Vicky The Viking, Heidi, and the new animated series Pippi Longstocking went to French/Swiss broadcaster RTS (Radio Television Suisse).

Distributor PGS Entertainment brought three episodes of the animated series Chaplin, from producers Method Animation of France, to MIPCOM. The CGI series debuts on France 3 later this year.

And it was announced at MIPCOM that French graphic novel Metal Hurlant is being brought to life by TLM, the media arm of Italian brand Panini. Pre-sales were announced to SPT Networks in selected territories, and NBC Universal Video Germany.

The Kids’ Jury

Warner’s Sam Register