Has this Mipcom been a good market? For sure, the 10.000 attendees were together in Cannes for the first time after the pandemic and it was touchable the willing to push initiatives, close deals. Everybody left the event with good mood and fresh opportunities to follow. Were its figures good? Though Mipcom attendance has been 20% down from 2019, to have these numbers is huge in the post pandemic market, where everything is with less volume, low profile, austere.

What has been the big trend? The milestone is turning from SVOD to AVOD/FAST channels, from subscribers to advertisement. Many of the new exhibitors were OTT platforms, that want to attract content players to generate FAST channels and make revenue sharing with ad incomes. This trend is a segment on its own: it includes different kinds of OTTs, aggregators, tech providers, content or business hubs, new outputs as TV set manufacturers, luxury cars, etc.

All will be AVOD from now? Of course not. Every sector will continue and AVOD growth will refit the content bowl. AVOD is so far a big chance of moving catalogue product, and a great complement to SVOD monetization problems, where original content costs grow faster than subscriber incomes. Some AVODs speaks about starting to produce original content too, but let’s see.

So… which are the big drivers of the international content market nowadays? Mainly three: 1, co-productions, the way for broadcasters to access to high-end product and open abroad markets. 2, the original content for SVODs, which now faces a stop in many projects, but continues as the big production hit worldwide. And 3, the AVODs/FAST channels, which take the content consumption again to the linear free TV ads-supported times, but on a digital platform basis.

Scripted or non-scripted? Many actors say that entertainment formats are back after a lack of creativity period, bringing big producers again to its genres. But others continue saying that fiction is the new thing, especially in Europe, to grow and refresh screens. For sure, broadcasters prefer entertainment formats to have easier top local content, while for digital platforms, fictions are the best, though they are entering more in unscripted.

Genres up? In unscripted, intelligent realities, that surprise audience at every step. As recently, mixtures of genres as realities, game, dating, cooking shows, always with twists. Celebrities are on top, but now in bizarre situations. In kids, more live action and young adult targets; for smallest kids, very short formats created in Youtube and based on songs. For Pay TV, True Crime, both factual or fictions based on real stories. About fiction in general, films are up vs. series, the series are made shorter. Thrillers continue as a top option because they travel everywhere. Comedies, biopics, science fiction, historical, procedural, are on a good move.

The future is ‘Glocal’? Of course, but internationalization continues as a problem for many local projects to turn real, even in Europe. The UK local production is naturally global, the French one is very prestigious worldwide, but on the opposite 3-4 from 5 ventures in Spain are stopped due to ‘too much local’. Italy and Germany are a mid-term, with Germans making many cross-country co-productions to fill the gap. Government censures are a strong issue too in many regions, though boost digital ventures. At all times problems and opportunities are together, at the global content market.

Nicolás Smirnoff, Fabricio Ferrara, Rodrigo Cantisano

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