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10 MIPTV takeaways: #7 the industry asks ‘how will MIP evolve?’
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One question TV folk in Cannes were asking was how will MIP evolve? Should it move location, should it be compressed into a shorter timeframe, should it in fact be a series of regional, or genre-specific events?
The Latin American-focused MIPCancun satellite event has been a success, attracting buyers from the region that can’t necessarily make a twice-yearly trip to Cannes.
Reed Midem announced last week it was moving the 16-18 November event, at which buyers and sellers meet via pre-arranged meetings coordinated by the organisers, to a larger location, the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancún Hotel.
Where else might MIP go local? One thought was with ATF having southeast Asia covered, China is a big enough market to sustain its own event and the gossip was a MIPChina is a distinct possibility.
How about Australasia, or taking on Discop and setting up a market in the fast-growing African market?
In terms of genre-themed events, MIP now rubs up against RealScreen in Washington, KidScreen and Miami, Series Mania and Série Series in France and a growing number of competitors.
The MIP organisers have responded and last week there were numerous conference sessions, drinks and networking opportunities across all areas of the TV business, with the international Kids Emmy Awards, the Digital Fronts, MIPDoc, a 4K focus, MIPFormats and newbie event MIPDrama.
The latter was considered a success and the expectation is it will become bigger, or even a standalone event.
For distributors, producers, the trip to Cannes is not a cheap one (and as anyone buying a beer in The Grand will attest, it is not inexpensive on the ground either).
Would it be better to compress the event into a shorter timeframe? Off the record, more than one distributor said so.
If international executives had to choose just one market to attend the chances are it would be MIPCOM but MIPTV remains (probably) the second-biggest market out there. With, however, the studios mostly absent, new platforms like TRX and ScreenHits offering new ways to do business, people are asking how it will evolve.
2 min read
