Mipcom back in full force with co-productions and flexible deals ruling

Set under sustained blue skies and sunshine, this year’s fall content market in Cannes (October 17-20) was a joyful event for many of the 10,900 international delegates who could finally meet in person post-Covid and get inspired by top international guest speakers.

Mipcom and MipTV organisers RX France - that saw numbers plummet during the pandemic - had promised to “come back with a bang” and to bring in new experiences to stick to industry needs, according to director Lucy Smith.

And their efforts paid off. The 10,896 attendees from 108 countries were above the anticipated 10,000 people from 100 countries, although down by nearly 3,000 from 2019.

Among the 3,100 buyers - from global, regional streamers to broadcasters and AVOD platforms - US reps were out in force, followed by acquisition execs from the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

“It’s been fantastic to finally meet in person all our existing clients, and even new ones. It’s been super busy and we can see that the interest in Nordic content is as high as ever,” said Helene Aurø, REinvent’s sales and marketing director.

Indeed corridors in the Palais des Festivals had non-stop traffic, just like the new mega-stands of BBC Studios, Disney, Paramount that moved into new homes, and Banijay’s impressive two-floor eco-friendly wooden structure in front of the Palais.

Co-production Focus - Producers Hub
Mipcom’s big novelty - its 1,000 sqm seaview Producers Hub was a true success, both as a meeting place and conference centre.

The new Producers hub was meant to reflect the industry shift from pure content distribution and sales, to co-development, co-production and co-financing, and global distributors were invited to share their insights at various panels.

The general consensus was that at a time of financial uncertainty, finding partners to share risks is more important than ever, with buyers and distributors of all sizes and types now being open for flexible deal-making across windows.

Lisa Perrin (Managing Director, Int’l Production, ITV Studios) who represented at Mipcom SVT’s highly anticipated series Blackwater (Apple Tree Productions) said “there isn’t one and only co-production model. It’s all about being passionate about a project”. Budgets are tougher, expectation higher [from buyers] but there are many more players and streamers around, offering different funding models and being more flexible, she said.

Besides stakeholders putting up money, there are also increasingly private equity investors stepping up, slightly complicating recoupment, she noted. “That will happen more and more”, she predicted, underlining as well the importance of tax breaks. “These are essential and make a different to budgets.”

About Premium Content (APC)’s co-CEO Emmanuelle Guilbart, global distributor of several Nordic shows including Iceland’s Blackport, said: “We used to have traditional local commissioners, opposed to global streamers. Now global streamers “become local again” (striking local territory rights deals, instead of taking world rights), so there is more flexibility in pre-sales, and we can keep the projects being more localised,” she noted.

Aurø also underlined that “the global windowing puzzle is more complicated than ever”. Our job is to get the best window for each series to optimise the sales - so it’s about negotiating shorter windows, no exclusives or shorter exclusives” she said.

Elsewhere, at a keynote, Marco Bassetti, CEO of the giant indie group Banijay, took a stand against global streamers’ ‘take it all’ attitude. “It is not fair to ask talent or producers to give up everything when they have a big success,” he pointed out.

Hollywood Studios reps were also highly visible, and open for international business.

Fox Entertainment Global’s CEO Rob Wade for instance said “while others are trying to hide their content behind paywalls, we are doing the opposite. We see the potential of working with [other] networks, producers and distributors to be able to get our content out there further,” he said.

Other talking points at Mipcom were the consolidation among the bigger players - as rumours spread in Cannes that ITV Studios was up for sale - the rise of FAST channels, AVOD (with Netflix set to launch its Basics with adverts package in November), and how inflation and rising costs are denting VOD subscribers’ growth potential.

At a panel about “the new rights picture”, Ruth Berry, ITV Studios’ MD Global Distribution said “data, is essential to understand the difference between free and pay TV, as consumers are the ones driving content. “Ultimately, great content will always be key for all,” she said, and in our eco-system, sharing is caring."

Hot Nordic content and genres
Over 20 global distributors with stands at Mipcom were offering Nordic content, including Viaplay Content Distribution-present for the first time under its own label.

Also new in Cannes with Nordic content under its belt was the two-year old company Rainmaker Content which just inked a first-look distribution deal with Finland’s Take Two Studios.

Discussing buyers’ attitude, REinvent’s Aurø said the market is vibrant, even in pre-sales, both for long-form and shorter formats for young adults. At press time the sales executive was finalising deals on various titles, both brand new and returning shows.

Maria Kivinen, sales manager at Yle Sales, was pleased to underline the market buzz on Yle Drama’s spy satire series Stop Nyqvist, in negotiations with the US, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, and Estonia. The presence of actor Marc Gassot in Cannes helped boost the show’s visibility in a hyper competitive market.

Similarly, actor Pelle Heikkilä’s flash tour on the Croisette to promote Beta Film’s event series Estonia, contributed to raising media and buyers’ attention on the Finnish show still in production.

Freja Johanne Nørgaard, sales executive at DR Sales, closed major deals on DR Drama’s period series Carmen Curlers and reported strong interest on the crime show Nordland ’99. (See our separate story CLICK HERE).

ZDF Studios announced multiple deals on the Swedish series Agatha Christie’s Hjerson, sold to the platform Topic for North America and SBS for Australia. Other deals were inked with VOD platforms Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Deutsche Telekom and Huawei for German speaking territories, Germany’s public broadcaster, ZDF, Viasat World (Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Croatia, Southeast Europe, Keshet (Israel), NHK (Japan), VR Films (India), LRT (Lithuania) and Walter Presents, (Walter Iuzzolino’s Global Series Network) for the UK and Ireland.The series was produced by B-RF for C More/TV4.

Elsewhere, Global Screen announced it has boarded the Swedish thriller series Hostage, sequel to Stockholm Requiem. The show starring Jonas and Liv Mjönes is directed by Karin Fahlén. Sweden’s Kärnfilm and Belgium’s Lunanime are co-producing. Telepool-owned Global Screen is handling sales outside the Nordics and Benelux.

The next content market in Cannes - MIPTV will be held April 17-21.
Celebrating its 60^th birthday, it will be strengthening its focus on documentaries and factual. Its adjoining Canneseries Festival will add a documentary section to its competition programme.