V I D E O A G E June/July 2022 16 NATPE Budapest the 13 is known as paraskevidekatriaphobia. For the brief in-person follow-up interview in Los Angeles, the 17 — even though not a Friday — was avoided, so it took place the day after, on May 18, with further e-mail exchanges throughout June. Before the interview, NATPE sent a press release announcing a fortuitous line-up of confirmed exhibitors, including the U.S. studios. Stated the release: “NATPE International is returning [June 27-30 at the InterContinental Hotel] to an in-person event in Budapest.” The last time the event was held in person was in June 2019. According to the release, “the marketplace is expected to attract around 300 buyers, including 37 broadcasters from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and more than 60 exhibitors from the U.S., U.K., Latin America, and Central Europe.” By early June the number of exhibitors had increased to 87. Can Okan, founder and CEO of Turkey’s Inter Medya, “will be attending the market with great motivation [since we’re finally] back after two years.” Okan plans to focus on new territories this time around. “Germany, Croatia, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Albania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czechia, North Macedonia, Korea, India, and Serbia, are among the countries we would like to meet with,” he said. “NATPE Budapest is looking to be one of our strongest markets despite the current situation [in Ukraine] because of the timing,” said Sonia Mehandjiyska, head of International Distribution for the Los Angeles-based Electric Entertainment. “We have two series in production and one in pre-production.” However, Mehandjiyska cautioned that “the war would certainly affect business in CEE. The halt on sales to Russia… will add to the many restrictions theworld is imposing onRussia [and] will affect overall sales in CEE, Russia, and CIS as a whole being one of the biggest territories. [But] the region is united behind Ukraine and the situation certainly requires sacrifices.” She “will be meeting with broadcasters from Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and ex-Yugoslavia.” As for the buyers, the CEE networks will be sending some personnel, but not all of their top executives. “Members of my team will be at NATPE,” said Jan Rudovsky, director of Content Acquisition for the Czech Republic’s Prima. Similarly, Silvia Majeská, program director The issue is the incompatibility of the Czech Republic’s plans to compensateDTT operators for simulcasting DTT programs both on the original networks using DVB-T/MPEG-2 standards and the new networks using the improved DVB-T2/ HEVC standards, since the aid would practically finance their upgrade. However, the grant also aims to ensure that DTT operators release the 700 MHz band from DTT services. On a regional level, a CEE TV overview indicates that, in terms of local TV production, Romania tops the CEE list, but Poland is on top with the number of local production houses, and is at the bottom of the list as far as acquired TV series are concerned. The top CEE content acquirer is Lithuania, followed by Estonia, then Latvia. These three countries are also active with local TV productions and have a good number of local producers. Estonia in particular is second only to Poland for the number of local production houses. Other large content acquirers include Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Czech Republic, in that order. NATPE Budapest proper will open at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 28, and will consist of hotel suites, stands, meeting tables, and viewing stations. Of the 90 exhibiting companies from 25 countries, the bulk will hail from the U.K., followed by France, then the U.S. and Germany, then Turkey. Late Tuesday afternoon there will be an opening party. The closing party will take place the following evening. The conference portion of the show, which had been a tradition in the past, won’t be taking place this year. “We don’t want participants to be distracted by that,” Bommel explained. Then VideoAge touched on the subject of cost, mentioning that reps for the Santa Monica, California-based American FilmMarket had announced reduced costs for exhibitors compared to 2019, when its last in-person trade show was held before the pandemic. “Costs for NATPE Budapest will be comparable to those of 2019,” he said. “This is despite industry-wide hotel increases of 20-30 percent. We managed to secure no-increases and the InterContinental will be fully open and fully staffed.” Bommel directed VideoAge’s readers to The Points Guy, a travel website, which explains how airfare increased an average of 10.7 percent over the pre-pandemic period, and hotel rates went up 29 percent on average compared to 2019. (Leisure-oriented cities like Miami saw hotel rate increases in the order of 43 percent). for the Czech Republic’s TV Nova, reported that “neither [TV Nova’s Matthias] Settele nor myself normally attend NATPE, but we have our acquisition team attending.” The market will also highlight Ukraine, a country that could use the boost at the moment. “We are proud to host the Ukrainian Pavilion on the exhibition floor,” said Bommel. The Pavilion is a free service to five Ukrainian companies under the umbrella of Ukrainian Content Global Cooperation initiative: Film.UA Group, 1+1 Media, Ukraine TV Channels, StarLight Media, and public broadcaster UA Suspilne. The initial interview with Bommel consisted of six questions, starting with one about banning Russian executives who support the invasion of Ukraine (as the Cannes Film Festival did). When answering, Bommel pointed to NATPE’s official statement issued in February, which stated, in part: “What we can do is join the world community and prevent Russian presence from conducting commerce. Therefore we are banning Russian companies from our upcoming international television sales market to be held in Budapest.” The second question made reference to the fact that many exhibitors were very disappointed by the cancellation of NATPE Miami, and if NATPE Budapest was going to happen no matter what. To that, he answered: “Yes — apart from a nuclear war, the market is going to happen.” Sincethepress releasetoutedtheparticipation of the U.S. studios, the next question concerned whether they would be screening their new TV seasons locally, as they did in the past. “As far as I know, they are,” said Bommel. And indeed a few weeks later the program appeared on the NATPE website indicating Monday, June 27, as the date of the Warner Bros. Screenings. The Paramount Screenings are to be held the next day in the morning, while NBCUni’s will be in the afternoon. All will be screening at the Puskin Cinema, where they typically take place. Traditionally, the U.S. studio screenings are a mixed blessing for NATPE Budapest. On one hand they siphon off buyers from the hotel’s exhibitors for most of the two days, but on the other, the very presence of the studios attracts more buyers to the market. This time, however, with a war ravaging the region, lifting the mood of TV buyers from countries bordering Ukraine and those facing a direct threat from Russia (like Lithuania and Latvia) will take more than viewing new U.S. studio fare or the traditional NATPE Budapest Buyers’ Reception on Monday. Then there are the internal disputes. The government of Hungary, under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is not the only CEE country to fall regularly under the wrath of the European Union. Now the E.U. is investigating whether public financing that the Czech Republic plans to grant in favor of DTT operators in the tune of 473 million koruna (U.S. $ 20.5 million) is in line with E.U. State aid rules. The beneficiaries of the grant would be the Czech public service broadcaster Ceska Televize, and private DTT telecommunications company Ceske Radiokomunikace. (Continued from Cover) Puskin cinema is the studios’ screening venue Meeting tables at the InterContinental hotel
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