VideoAge International October 2018

24 October 2018 V I D E O A G E NATPE Budapest Review which exhibited, the market was “at the same level as the previous year.” However, Peck saw a “huge number of Hungarians and Bulgarian [buyers],” but added: “I didn’t see a huge number of big Russian buyers. There were not many Polish TV people, and there was a distinct lack of Romanians.” Peck also said he wished that participants would not leave after just two and a half days. Ben Packwood of London’s All3media said that “in terms of improvement from last year, I didn’t notice a lot of difference. We had full diaries, but not a lot [of walk-ins] that proved to be of value.” Packwood concurred with Peck, noting that “most buyers from the Balkan region were there. However, CIS and Baltic broadcasters were not there in great numbers.” To Melanie Torres of Los Angeles-based GRB Entertainment, “NATPE Budapest could benefit from the automated meeting service that MIP Cancun offers. NATPE attempted to do it this year, but the option to e-mail buyers directly was still there so it was hard to track meetings in both e-mails and then the portal. If NATPE adopted the process that MIP Cancun has, where you get to choose the people you want to meet and then the matching and times get automatically populated for us, I think it would be a more efficient market,” she commented. Nevertheless, Torres found the market “busier than last year. I met a lot of new buyers, as well. I had quite a lot of walk-ins. Sitting on the market floor is a big benefit for foot traffic,” she said, adding that, “for the most part, I saw buyers from all of my territories, [but] I was surprised to see buyers from Spain.” Torres also said that “most of [the buyers] already had their programming schedule for 2018 completed, and were buying for 2019.” For Packwood, “With a financial year that ends in December, our focus was on sales in 2018. That said, we have a very healthy pipeline of content through 2019 already in the works, so we had plenty to talk about [with buyers] if their 2018 budgets were already spent. As we are investing more heavily in premium dramas than ever before, our conversations with broadcasters are happening earlier.” Similarly, Sunita Uchil of India’s Zee Enter- tainment reported that she “had more buyers visit our booth [and] had several walk-ins, especially from Eastern Europe.” She also noted a “strong presence of buyers from Serbia, Moldova, and Poland,” but had “hoped to see more buyers from CIS.” Uchil was also pleasantly surprised by the buyers’ interest in Zee’s documentary The Life of Earth from Space . “This is the first time Zee has gone into the high-end documentary space,” she explained. As to how to improve the market, Uchil expressed a wish “to know ahead of time what buyers are specifically looking for and to have more detailed information on the buyers themselves.” Otherwise, she concluded, “we enjoyed a successful market.” To Packwood, “One clear area for improvement is the sessions. The organizers clearly make an effort to put together talks with market leaders on the panel, but every year they are held in a room that is far too small and attendees are left gathering around the door.” Then, he concluded, “NATPE Budapest sits nicely between MIP-TV and MIPCOM — before everyone disappears for the summer.” (Photo Credit: Andrea Stringhetti) (Continued from Page 22) At the Calinos suite on the second floor (l. to r.): Asli Serim Guliyev, Ebru Mercan At the Inter Medya stand (l. to r.): Beatriz Cea Okan, Can Okan, Pelin Koray At the Mediaset desk (l. to. r.): Claudia Marra, MGE’s Esperanza Garay, Manuela Caputi NBCUniversal International Distribution (l. to r.): David Walsh, Anthony Asfour, Daryna Pyrogova, Doug Davis, Sven Noth, Jennifer Speechly, Rooshi Phakey