Mipcom 2008 - Special Report
The contents market, from riding the waves to a sort of stock exchange

By Nicolas Smirnoff

Once the Boreal summer is over, the contents market gathers again at Mipcom in Cannes. That's the convention that offers the most in term of variety and quantity: Europe meets the United States, Asia, Latin America, Africa and vice versa. What can be said as a preview of this trade show?

The troubling international environment appears as one of the features; a recession in the U.S. and concerns about Europe have been so far balanced by growth at the emerging regions and the openness of entrepreneurs to reinvent the business through innovative initiatives and the new technology platforms. On the other hand, the recent MIPTV and MIPCOM shows had positive results and it doesn't like the current worldwide momentum will come to a standstill, beyond loss of growth at certain core markets.

The Asian countries remain bullish, Eastern Europe is evolving towards becoming closer to Western Europe; Latin America is expanding itself at a fast pace and Africa is getting interesting. All this results in a really worldwide trade dimension, enlarging the number of existing and potential customers. But, at the same time it forces to change habits and start believing from the starting point that the international markets are as important as the domestic business. Deals are increasingly international, even when the internal market is robust.

The openness of the market to transform itself is another element against recession. Traditional television deals result in hits and innovative content that develop new demand, new production projects, creative processes and reaction among competitors. And then you have the 360º vision, which is gaining force; instead of speaking about television and DVD alone, there is also merchandising, live shows, Internet, mobile, etc. This expands the market, adding additional room for growth.

All in all, taking into account emergent segments is the best card to play regarding future contents markets. It's like riding the waves of an ocean; the tide will move you, but waves will result in more speed than the rest.

The stock exchange
Another outstanding feature today is that the contents market resembles a stock exchange, in the sense that pendulum axis exist as a result of market trends. A smart player's job is to forecast oncoming trends and profit by jumping from each of them to the next one, before they become knowledge.

Fiction vs. Entertainment is one of these pendulum axis. In the past ten years, Big Brother and American Idol have thrown the balance in favor of entertainment through the success of reality shows capturing prime time slots. But recently the industry has seen a reinforcement of fiction formats, which are no longer a rarity and are accepted as an option in different territories; so, fiction has returned to the stellar time slots. Even more, daily fiction projects are being developed in major European and Asian nations, something not frequent in the past. It is a growing trend, especially around comedies.

In Europe, beyond Hollywood hits and traditional self-production, today the schedule between fiction and entertainment is more diverse and offers oscillations: while Czech Prima TV has developed an in-house version of Ugly Betty (the success originally created by RCN Colombia) and Gipsy Heart (an original telenovela by MediaPro, shown on Acasa TV) has been the hit of the year in Romania, at Pro Sieben, in Germany, afternoon fiction is being replaced by a new variation, daily realities, which consist in talk shows and comedies. At the same time, in other nations the broadcasters are programming movies during the afternoon (mainly romantic comedies, at 4pm or 5 pm) with success. It looks like there are no rules or, on the contrary, the rule is to change when there is too much of the same being offered.

In Asia, some broadcasters in the Philippines, India or Malaysia are exhibiting daily fiction in formats longer than usual, and produce their first telenovelas or “telenovela series”, for instance. By contrast, in Latin America there are realities -such as Televisa's Dancing for a Dream- that have taken over a good slice of the prime time slots; in Argentina, leading programming director Adrian Suar -at Artear Channel 13- asserts that musical comedies will get space in the prime time next year. This would have been nearly unthinkable until now.

The positive side of these swings is that the markets remain open and willing to deals of any kind. As described in earlier reports, several major companies are seeking original stories in border countries -from Peru to India- and are proposing them to the Hollywood studios or the major Western European broadcasters. Or, bilateral agreements are being signed between Asia and the Americas. The rise of daily fiction has opened doors to Latin American providers at top producers such as Reveille in the U.S. and JLA Group in France.

Canned product vs. formats is another traditional axis. In addition, there is now a pendulum between formats and tailor made product, and another one between traditional genres vs. convergent technology. The first one reflects market swings; while it's true that there is a trend towards formats and self-production, many distributors from different regions have been able to sell canned product to large country broadcasters, formerly inaccessible. Everything is possible nowadays, if there is quality in the product and the on-and-off market trends are taken into account.

Worldclass quality production is being achieved in an increasing number of nations. The chance to produce in different places product comparable to the Hollywood output is another shot in the arm for globalization. Tailor made product requires more effort and is riskier than formats, but offers a better accomplishment when successful. And, it turns out product that can be offered to third parties.

The traditional genres vs. new media axis is another example of swinging evolution. When predicting the future, no one doubts that Internet and interactivity are the future. In practice, content developers keep turning out 90% of their product in traditional ways: those who produces series, movies and miniseries keep doing the same; they have not jumped to interactive reality shows where an episode of a TV series is followed by something on the Internet, or things like that.

So far, the most innovative programs are being watched by niche audiences only. Some analysts argue that the major genres have suffered cosmetic changes: teen series are now 360º, Big Brother became American Idol... could be. The bottom line is that the business will remain under the traditional standards for some time, while new media will be steadily acquiring market share.

All in all, what defines success in the contents business is the ability to move ahead of inertia. There is a better chance of success when you dare to do something different, but not too much, and combine it with traditional values. At Mipcom and beyond an intricate and competitive business is awaiting us. But, there will be new ideas, a variety of possible deals, and less prejudice.