SERIES MANIA FORUM 2023 provided three days of very good activities and panels with many iconic players: Netflix, Disney+,Amazon Prime, HBO Max,Paramount+, TF1, France Televisions, Mediawan, Sky, etc. Conclusions? Mainly five, that make trends.
First, all the opinions PRENSARIO took from participants were very positive. Everybody was pleased at SeriesMania: sellers, buyers, producers, creatives. Second, many of the required people were at the market for the first time, or second. It was full of new attendees. There is a trend about attending new markets for fresh contacts. Third, now SERIES MANIA has been not only European, but also global, as organizers stressed. The Americas and especially Asia had good presence, with events from Japan, Taiwan, etc. The same is said for MIPTV: the return of Asia after the pandemic.
Fourth, SERIES MANIA has been a market more of producers, co-productions, formats, fresh ideas, than canned programming. More portions of the content events are tending to production. And fifth, as Can Okan from Turkish Inter Medya said, SERIESMANIA is ‘a festival that turned into a market’, showing a trend we see in many festivals nowadays. In Lille there was a specific section with booths of different festivals stressing this evolution. Networking on top.
Highlights during the market?Delphine ErnotteCunci, CEO atFrance Télévisions: ‘It’s a good moment for France TV, with more than two million French viewers since the pandemic. To continue with big TV productions, we are looking for alliances and new opportunities’.Moritz Von Kruedner, MD, Beta Group (Germany): ‘Creation and coproduction are the two main axes in BETA. We are keen to deliver content with potential to travel to other markets. Local stories with global potential’.
Cécile FrotCoutaz, CEO atSky Studios Europe: ‘We program, produce, commission, and finance all the projectsof the group and their 6 regions units. We are a broadcaster, a platform, an aggregator, and all of these allow us to be innovative’. James Farrell, head of local originals at Prime Video: ‘We produce and pay for our titles the average price for each market. We want to complement both types of programs, those with local reach and those who can go international’.
Trendy testimonials?,Guillaume Pommier, Federation Studios: ‘The times when money flowed are over. There is a contraction in the market and the platforms are becoming more cautious in terms of spending, but the channels are producing more and more’. Alexandra Lebret, GD, European Producers Club: ‘Now there is a lot of competition and producers have to work with adjusted budgets. Investments are focused on local content’.
Rodolphe Belmer, CEO atTF1 Group: ‘We see an opportunity for large media and broadcaster groups, which are joining forces and acquiring low-profile production companies, but with theatrical high-profile developments’.HBO and HBO Max CEO, Casey Bloys, said: ‘At HBO, domestic and international operations were very disjointed, but due to industry changes, we are working more together, watching global programming investments as a single team’.
The closing event was held bySeries Mania and Eurimages.Francesco Capurro, head of the forum, expressed: ‘We just have to say thank you for all the participants. This year we’ve had one of our most successful events ever. We had 3800 people, vs. 3300 last year’. Susan Newman Baudais, Exe directoratEurimages, added: ‘Very good news are to come for the series production industry in Europe. It is great to be part of it nowadays’.
Mariano Gutierrez Alarcon from Lille, and Alberto Buitron
