This MIPTV is a very special Cannes event. We have the changes of the market, the pandemic still running and the Ukraine war, all together causing effects. But since the openings of the pandemic, the markets of the content business have looked healthy, with people wanting to attend and doing business, after the long stop. This case promises to be the same: European associations calculate about 4.500 people attending MIPTV 2022, quite the same that attended Mipcom 2021 last October. And this time there are many only-Mipcom executives, that couldn’t attend October and don’t want to wait one year.
Is this enough to assure a good market? Of course not. For Prensario the figures are high, in our opinion about 3.000 people should attend the traditional Spring Cannes show. But above all, MIPTV has a long-time problem of confidence, with many people considering that is bad to pay as for Mipcom but receiving 30% less movement, or so. Many even say that with one Cannes show is enough.
Before the pandemic if you remember, MIPTV had been prepared to change, with all small booths and just two pavilions open. When Mipcom could return last October, it deployed the same concept, optimizing costs and concentrating traffic, beyond more ventilated halls. This formula probably will continue in many of the Cannes shows, even Mipcom, because we have a new market now, with some people attending on site and many others online.
A new stage for MIPTV has started? Is it the event safe for the future? You cannot imagine a final solution if many of the problems are not solved. Let’s see this time and next year, when the pandemic will be for sure behind. One tip is good: with the blackouts, people could consider better the value of the markets, so there are more industry members pushing to defend MIPTV beyond their own business. But it would be fine for Reed Midem organizers, not to keep calm with this a bit better scenario and to focus one by one on the tips that made MIPTV disputed: fees, buyer attendance, networking, extra values, etc.
This April we expect about 70% of the attendees from Europe, 20% from Asia and Middle East and 10% from the Americas. So, this MIPTV is a good chance to make better business in Europe, to take more time with players that usually are taken in a hurry. And to detect/push emergent opportunities, that are key in the new post pandemic market. The focus on production and formats, continue as a good asset. As Walt Disney used to say, ‘Keep moving forward’.
