26 V I D E O A G E October 2022 The return of in-person international markets and festivals has all of the industry’s players very excited. MIPCOM, in particular, will be a thermometer measuring whether all this excitement is justified, and that business can and will return to the high level of pre-pandemic times. It will also surely show whether the Cannes market can meet the needs of an industry that has changed dramatically since 2019. Western Europe is traditionally the engine that drives the Côte d’Azur expo-conference, contributing the largest number of buyers and the largest number of exhibitors/sellers. North America comes in a strong second, and Asia comes in third, followed by the delegation of companies and executives from Eastern Europe. But what about Latin America? As far as the content that Latin American buyers are looking for, Parrot Analytics, the Los Angeles-based global research company, has just released a 42-page digital booklet with the results of a survey covering “Content Trends Across Latin America and Spain.” The survey was made available to recipients of MIP Cancun newsletters and e-mails, and covers most LATAM countries, in particular Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. The report also offers a look into the success of Turkish series in LATAM, explaining how “Mexico stands out as a key source of drama for the global market”, and analyzes the popularity of various genres in different LATAM countries. According to the report, “there has been a major surge in demand for Turkish content in LATAM since the middle of 2020”, to the point that “some Turkish series are more successful in LATAM than in Turkey.” The report also points out that the audience for Turkish series is more female-skewed. LATAM has also been welcoming South Korean and Japanese TV series of late, and the report stated that, since last year, the demand for Japanese series increased from 10.5 percent to 11.8 percent. However, the share for Korean TV fare decreased from 3.4 percent to 3.2 percent. Looking at various LATAM countries, it must be noted that inArgentina, children’s shows are the viewers’ favorite genre, taking 45.3 percent more of the survey votes compared to the global average, followed by action-adventure (16.4 percent), and variety (14.3 percent). Similarly, children’s shows dominate in Chile with 92.1 percent, followed by animation (46.3 percent), and variety (32.8 percent). In Colombia, the preference for children’s shows reaches a whopping 98.5 percent compared to the global average, while variety settles for 47 percent. In Mexico, children’s programs score high marks with 72.1 percent, and variety shows are at 31.4 percent. The major LATAM country where children’s fare doesn’t fare so well is Brazil, where it has just 19.1 percent of the survey vote compared to the global average, while variety dominates with 82.6 percent, followed by horror (27.4 percent). But how much LATAM attendance should we expect at the upcoming MIPCOM CANNES? It looks like the number of Latin American executives in Cannes will be lower than that of participants from many other territories, both in terms of exhibitors and of attendees, with Argentinians and Brazilians representing the largest contingents. This is mostly because travel expenditures in the post-pandemic period are much higher than before. The current cost of plane tickets and accomodations are frequently cited by Latin American executives as a reason for skipping out on in-person industry events. Another thing that must also be taken into consideration is the fact that MIPCOM happens shortly after the four-day Spainbased Iberseries & Platino Industria, which takes place three weeks before the Cannes event. The second annual Iberseries & Platino Industria is a television event that takes place in Madrid, September 27 to 30, and was created to encourage the audiovisual business in Spain and Portugal. This Iberseries & Platino Industria is an initiative of Spain’s rights management group EGEDA, and the Fundación Secuoya. This latter organization is a creation of Secuoya, a group formed by 1,600 Spanish media professionals. The Matadero Madrid, a former slaughterhouse, is the venue of the Iberseries & Platino Industria event, and has become a favorite place for LATAM executives to have meetings. The event also offers 36 screenings for international buyers from, among other locales, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, the U.S., France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. MIPCOM also takes place shortly before sister event MIP Cancun, which is set for November 13-16, 2022 and has gained relevance for the Latin American TV sector. A survey conducted by The Daily Television among sellers and buyers from Latin America found that MIP Cancun, which starts 24 days after MIPCOM, has become the number one market for television companies and executives from the Latin American and Hispanic market in the United States who do not regularly attend European events. (By Omar Mendez*) A Review of LATAM TV Consumption and Trade Market Participation LATAM TV News * Omar Mendez is the editor-in-chief of Spanishlanguage publication The Daily Television Jornadas: Connecting LATAM’s Southern Cone Via Television After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic, the Associación Argentina Video & Conectividad, or Argentinean Cable Association (ATVC), is once again organizing its in-person Jornadas (meaning “days”) exhibition for cable/satellite channels’ content and equipment in Buenos Aires. The show mainly focuses on the Southern Cone of Latin America (Cono Sur), but its conferences also cover additional LATAM countries besides Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. This time, instead of its traditional September dates, the Jornadas has been moved to November 9-10, 2022, which is the beginning of the summer in Argentina. The venue will once again be the Hilton Hotel in the Puerto Madero district of the city. Among the confirmed exhibiting companies (thus far) are AMC Network, ARTEAR, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery. With its many ups and downs, reflecting the various economical stages of the region, the Jornadas has managed to stay relevant for some 32 years, mostly due to the sheer determination of ATVC president Walter Burzaco, a onetime Argentinean cable TV executive who has been at the helm for 22 of the association’s 59 years. DS
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