Videoage International March 2019

6 World at the Las Vegas Convention Center, is “Where Content Comes to Life.” In addition to the floor action, where the latest equipment and technology will be on display, there will be a dense conference program covering every aspect of the media landscape, such as “Business Media,” the “Future of Cinema,” and “Content Stra- tegy,” which by itself accounts for eight different sessions. The NAB Show, in association with the Streaming Summit Conference (a new industry conference that streaming media expert Dan Rayburn formed with NAB in 2018) will again produce a two-day event with a focus on the OTT video industry. The Summit will take place April 8-9 in the North Hall of the Convention Center. The event will feature nearly 100 speakers across two tracks. Technical topics to be addres- sed include the transcoding, packaging, monetization, and playback of live and on-demand video, including ways to deliver the best viewing experience. Attendees will also learn how to capitalize on direct-to-con- sumer offerings and how some of the largest companies in the world are monetizing their vi- deo libraries via advertising, subscription, and other strate- gies. “The Streaming Summit is a critical component in NAB Show’s continued focus on the business, technology and con- tent powering the phenomenal growth of OTT video and strea- ming,” said Chris Brown, NAB’s executive vice president of Con- ventions and Business Opera- tions. The Streaming Summit will also feature nearly a dozen fi- reside chats with key executives in the online video market, in- cluding Amazon, Google, Face- book, Comcast, Hulu, and other OTT platforms. E very year for the past 72 years, the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has organized a huge bazaar in Las Vegas to showcase the latest in technology, content, services, and suppliers. The event attracts more than 100,000 entertainment industry executives from 161 countries. Other components of the NAB Show include the legal and regulatory aspects of the film and television business, and the various pipes (or conduits) for the delivery of entertainment, such as cable, broadcast, satellite, wireless, and fiber. The tagline for this year’s show, taking place April 6-11 OTT is a Top Event At April’s NAB Show March 2019 (Continued from Page 4) The Best Way to Make Sales... I N T E R N A T I O N A L www.VideoAge.org THEBUSINESS JOURNALOF FILM,BROADCASTING,BROADBAND,PRODUCTION,DISTRIBUTION April 2018 -VOL.38NO.2 - $9.75 ByBlairWestlake* I n2015,theEuropeanCommission (EC) set in motion what film, TV producers, and broadcasters alike consider tobea seriouserosion of their right to exploit content on a territory-by-territory basis in the European Union by mandating cross-border access to audiovisual (AV) content and services, known as the European Commission’s Digital SingleMarketstrategy. In2013, theEuropeanaudiovisual industry generated revenues of approximately 83 billion euro (U.S.$103 billion), of which about halfof thatwas spentoncontent. It has been common practice for content tobe licensedexclusivelyby a territory or country because this typically yields the highest license fees and return on investment for producers (generally, a premium is paid for exclusive rights by a licensee, insteadofa licensorhaving to line up multiple non-exclusive licenses). Similarly, broadcaster and cable/ satellite programmers gravitate to exclusive content and pay the premium associated with such A Greek Tragedy in the Making For Europe’s AV (Continued onPage 26) My 2¢: BBC America: Great news, terrible organization L.A. Screenings to offer plenty of reboots for the new season What’s up doc? Canada keeps up docs production Football’s secret trade leverages lucrative television rights Page 34 Page14 Page 10 Page 8 M arvel andDCComics have something in common: superheroAliceDonenfeld. She first became familiar with the comicsworld through her husband, Irwin,whowas thesonofDCComics founder,HarryDonenfeld.Shenever worked forDC,but she servedasVP for rival Marvel, before becoming an EVP at Filmation, a company with a large catalog of DC Comics programs. Later, shewent solowith theeponymousAliceEntertainment. AliceDonenfeldinthe Int’lTVDistribution HallofFame (Story onPage28) (Continued onPage 24) M orethan200U.S.television critics came together in Pasadena, California for TheTelevisionCriticsPressTour, the TelevisionCriticsAssociation’s(TCA) semi-annual January conference, which featured two weeks of non- stop panels, industry parties, and production setvisits. All the major U.S. TV networks were in attendance, aswere Public TV (PBS), the streaming service Hulu,andover30cableTVnetworks. There, they faced thecriticswithout fear.However,neitherCBSnorNBC had executive sessions, choosing to focus instead on the programs on their schedules. The TCA press tours provide TV TVContent’sLight andDarkSpots StarringatTCA 1 (Continued onPage4) T he two-page brochure that Reed MIDEM distributed at ATF lastNovember indicated that MIP-TV 2018 will have 3,800 buyers, “including24percentnew.” This number was later confirmed (as reported in VideoAge ’s March 2018pre-MIP-TVedition). Since the number of buyers is consistent with MIP-TV 2017, our first observation is that 912 buyers from last year’sMIP-TVwill not be returning, but will be replaced by a similar number of new buyers. Of those 3,800 buyers, 1,104 are acquiring digital rights, perhaps indicating a reduction in the numberof terrestrialbuyersandan increase indigitalbuyers. To get a sense of traditional television buyers’moods, VideoAge Daily took an informal survey of nine acquisition execs from eight countries. VideoAge Daily: What are you looking foratMIP-TV? Anonymous FrenchTVbroad- caster: “Wearebuying ready-made MIP-TV Buyers: Expectations, Acquisitions COMING UP: Turkish TV report and L.A. Screenings preview INSIDE: NAB & MIP-TV overlap; Series Mania in Lille My 2 Cents: Utopia and dystopia in the television business April 11 Page8 Page3 A little over 52 years ago, the second annual MIP-TV market was held in Cannes at theoldPalais,March 16-23, 1966. Few executives working today can remember that event, but thanks to Carsey-Werner’s Herb Lazarus, VideoAge was able to reviewwhat tookplace.Hereare the figures as reported in the MIP-TV 1967 brochure: 1,012 “professionals” participated representing 242 companies from 53 countries. With 25 companies, Europe took the lion’s share, followed by Africa (10 companies), Asia (7), Central America(5),NorthAmerica(3),and SouthAmerica (2). Looking Back at MIP-TV 1966: ComparingCosts (Continued onPage4) Analyzing MIP-TV Strength Factoring Market’s Features T o judge MIP-TV, many ele- ments have to be taken into account. Ultimately, though, the quantity and quality of new titles will determine the success of amarket. To get an overview of the show, VideoAgeDaily contacted ten exhibitors from sevencountries. VideoAgeDaily: How do you judge a market likeMIP-TV?What factorsare considered? DavidEllender ,president,Global Distribution and Co-productions at Sonar Entertainment, theU.S.: “We factor in the number of territories represented, overall attendance, and the attendance of key decision- makers. Any acquisition or co- production isa team-leddecision, so this would include decision-makers fromplatformswhooverseecreative, scheduling,andmarketing.” Danny Fisher , CEO and co- founder, FilmRise, the U.S.: “Our best judge of themarket really boils down to the amount of exposure our content and company receives. We are at [MIP] to sell and acquire. Themoreourofferedprograms and our company’s corporate agenda (asperceived by our acquisitions) is (Continued onPage 4) VideoAge Daily on the go MIP-TV 2018 April 9, 2018 D EFI N I N G ENTERTAI N M ENT VISIT US AT C15.A8 CarnageVideoAgeFrontCoverFIN.indd 1 3/21/18 12:40PM DAY 1 1 (Continued onPage 4) A teveryTVmarket inCannes, a platoon of some 1,000 freelance support personnel fromCannesandothernearby towns — mainly female, and informally called “hostesses” — invades the Palais to assist many of the more than 1,500exhibitors. They’re always impeccably dressed,evenwhenunpackingor re- packingboxes,andwhenwelcoming visitors to the stands. They’re multilingual, and do everything from serving coffee to arranging for flowers, to picking up extra chairs, to locating a pharmacy that’s open on Sundays, to finding taxis, to booking tables at restaurants that are supposedlyfilled tocapacity. Corinne (Coco) Schmidt, who lives a 15-minute car ride from Cannes, recalled when, after the air travel chaos caused by Iceland’s volcanic ash disaster in 2010, she had to organize extended stays in hotels and apartments, which included helping with shopping for necessities, airline/train/ferry MIP’s Unsung Heroines: The Hostesses VideoAge Daily on the go INSIDE: Viacom,Chili, and Fox; Bruce Gordon Scholarship INSIDE: Cannes Visuals — MIP-TV Photo Report My 2 Cents: The zero marginal cost society and global oligarchy Page 6 Page13 Page 3 T omorrow,duringa lunchtime presentation at the Carlton Hotel, MIP-TV will award its 2018 Medals of Honor to four international TV executives from four countries: Izzet Pinto, founder and CEO, Global Agency (Turkey); Pascal Breton, CEO, Federation Entertainment (France); Teresa Fernández-Valdés, executive pro- ducer,BambúProducciones(Spain); and Weidong Yang, president of Youku, Alibaba Digital Media and EntertainmentGroup (China). Traditionally an evening affair since th awards were instituted by MIP-TV organizers in 2013, this time thepresentationwill takeplace at lunchtime, as the evening slot MedalsofHonor Awardedat Lunchto4Execs (Continued onPage4) China TV’s Learning Curve Into The Int’l Marketplace L ittleby littleChinese television is making inroads into the international TV market. Last Sunday,hereatMIP-TV,CCTVhosted anExchangeForum; thenatmidday, the China Pavilion sponsored a MIPDramaBuyersNetworkingbuffet luncheon at the Majestic Hotel for about 150 guests. And yesterday CCTVorganizedaShowcase. The Forum was hosted by China’s Film and TV Import and Export Association, a 43-member organization of Chinese production companies. CCTV is China’s state broadcasting organization, which at MIP-TVisheadedbygeneralmanager Jianing Shen (pictured at rightwith ZhengYang,deputydirector general of theStateTVDramaDepartment). To complement these efforts, CCTVhashiredanAmericanPRfirm well versed in international content sales, which will have to p rsuade theChinese tocut theirgovernment’s umbilical cord (as Latin American and Turkish companies had to do to achieve international success), and to showcase progra s with mo e internationalappeal. MIP-TV 2018 DAY 2 April 10,2018 W ith 20th Century Fox and CBS as the two U.S. studios with a full- fledged presence here at MIP-TV, theL.A.Screeningsareon theminds of many buyers. And the studios are obliging. Executives from CBS Studios International, which has five comedyand 13dramapilots this year, are planning onmaking lunch breaks at the upcoming Screenings even more efficient by allowing buyers topre-order theirmeals. At 20th Century Fox, the studio is touting JonathanDavis,president of Fox Creative Affairs, who took time from his busy schedule to be here atMIP-TV to discuss their new slate with buyers. “We have lots Day & Date From The Marketing Perspective VideoAge Daily on the go INSIDE: Cannes visuals — MIP-TV Photo report INSIDE: A Santa Claus career for Gary Lico My2Cents: Embracing paradoxesas recipe for successfulTVseries Page13 Page 6 Page3 T oday’s question –– in view of last Monday’s keynote about Facebook, and today’s about Instagram and finding a common language for a series to travel — involves the opportunities and challengesofmarketingforDay-and- Date content across the globe. This is in addition to theneed forahigh- MIP-TV As Launching Pad For L.A. Screenings (Continued onPage 4) Turkish ‘Six Sisters’ Aim to ReachMajor TVMarkets T urkish companies are now on a mission to conquer the U.S. airways, both in the sky with their national airlines, and in the ether with their award-winning programs. During last February’s SuperBowl,America’spremiersports tournament,TurkishAirlineswasone of theofficial sponsors. Earlier, at NATPE Miami, the six largest Turkish distribution companies exhibited. Here at MIP- TV, 46 are exhibiting, including the so-called “six sisters”: ATV, Calinos, Global Agency, Inter Medya, Kanal D, and MISTCO/TRT. These are in addition to 21 participating companies. Turkish TV content is enjoying a surge in popularity these days — especially in LatinAmerican,Middle Eastern, and Eastern European territories — and said content has evenmade itsway toSoutheastAsia. As such, more than 20 Turkish TV companies exhibited at last year’s AsiaTVForummarket. It is estimated that at MIP-TV, Turkish companies brought over (Continued onPage 4) MIP-TV 2018 April 11,2018 DAY 3 CONCORDE C M Y CM MY CY CMY K