Reed Midem reacts to UK indie news

Reed Midem said today it will hold talks with UK indies and the UK Department for International Trade over how to best support independent UK companies at its markets in the wake of Pact’s decision to pull its Indies Pavilion.

Indie trade group Pact confirmed this week it would no longer fund the Pavilion after more than a decade at the Cannes markets.

Reed Midem said today that it had been informed of that decision last week, and continues to talk to Pact and its members about how the two can work together. Outside of those discussions, Reed Midem said it will talk directly to UK indie producers and distributors, as well as the relevant UK authorities.

“This is not about whether the British independents attend MIPTV and MIPCOM, it’s about how they attend,” said Laurine Garaude, director of Reed Midem’s TV division.

She added that many of the companies that initially started out on the Pact Pavilion have grown, and are among Reed Midem’s biggest clients.

“We will now talk to the UK’s indie producers and distributors and the Department for International Trade [a new UK government department that has absorbed the activities of UKTI], to find the best way to represent this important television community at the world’s two largest markets, MIPTV and MIPCOM,” she said.

Pact said it was refocusing its international efforts from the Pavilion to trade missions and its Export Accelerator programme.

Chief executive John McVay told TBI the association, which was instrumental in winning indies programme rights via the UK Terms of Trade, was not getting sufficient return on its £250,000 investment at the Cannes markets, with many most companies on the stand not Pact members, and not signing up after being part of the Pavilion.

Garaude noted the feedback from UK indies was good in the wake of this year’s MIPCOM. “Pact’s decision does not question the value of MIPTV and MIPCOM for independent producers, as the feedback from these companies was that both events in 2016 were extremely busy and good business was done,” she said.

Reed Midem reported 14,000 attendees for this year’s MIPCOM. Of that total, 4,900 were buyers, and 1,500 of the acquisition execs were working for digital and SVOD services. Numbers are not broken out by territory, but the UK had a sizeable contingent in Cannes.  MIPCOM remains larger than MIPTV, which reported 11,000 attendees this year. They remain the two largest events in the international TV calendar.