Mipcom 2026 comes to an end today, with a good outcome: though there have been fewer attendees than last year, there was a very good density of decision makers, mainly buyers, programmers, CEOs. So, this is a better mix to make business move forward. At the wrap-up conference, Lucy Smith, Mipcom director at RX France, said that the event had this year 10.100 participants from 104 countries, including 3160 buyers. MIPJunior had 600 attendees including 165 kids & teens buyers. The Top 10 countries in attendance have been USA, UK, France, Germany, Turkey, Canada, Spain, Italia, Japan and India.

Before the market, RX France had estimated 10.600 attendees and 3500 buyers, so the final figures are a bit lower from expected, but nothing to do with usual hater estimations during the week, mentioning a 25% down, or so. Just for Prensario, Smith said numbers are not so relevant nowadays, when content business is consolidated in fewer players and people per company. The true drivers are quality of attendees and tangible business outcomes. Prensario has made a survey yesterday with 30 top exhibitors, and about 90% of them agreed that density of C-levels and business deliverables have been sensibly up this year.

Highlights of the wrap-up conference? Smith stressed that two key current drivers of Mipcom are the strong presence of tech titans, as YouTube, already a stable exhibitor, Tiktok, Samsung and others, including intense new technologies activities; and the ‘MIP Brand Works’ program, about branded content and product placement ventures. Brands and contents need to meet each other.

About the RX France events, Smith confirmed Mipcom for October 18-21, 2027, but the two previous days of MIPJunior ’will be evaluated’, feeding the rumors that the kids event would take place during the Mipcom week days next year, to boost traffic and optimize costs. MIPLondon is not anymore, after two editions, while MIPTalks is announced for March 16-17, during the “London Book Fare”, with just conferences, no exhibitors, about IP and new narratives issues, including videogames, music, etc.

What outcome can be added by Prensario? Mipcom this year was crowded with cocktails, conferences and events, but few announcements comparing to other editions, apart from the usual new slates. There have been more conservative than disruptive strategies among the main players of the content industry… ‘Let’s keep quiet until it clears up’, it could be a good resume of the general attitude.

Content market works today as a coin with two faces: traditional business intending to palliate the rising costs with reduced incomes, while digital business is looking for monetizing the new ventures to recover healthy numbers. The good news is that the industry handles encouraging tools --YouTube, microdramas, branded content, AI developments-- to build a better future. Also, the market is full of examples about competitors that having started from the same point, one is starving and other is healthy and growing… in content business more than in other industries, a good portion of the future depends on oneself.

Microdramas is one of top pushing segments. Timothy Oh, general director international of COL Group (Singapore): ‘The microdramas platforms are not as Tiktok or YouTube that move constant millions in advertisement. We take traffic, good incomes from them having a successful product, but when it is finished, we have to start again from zero. Good solutions are to make bundling alliances with telcos, to get massive traffic. The competence is not for content, is for the attention. Microdramas need to generate successful IPs, as movies, to make business more foreseeable’.

Nicolás Smirnoff, Alberto Buitron, Juan Pablo Morales

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