Mipcom hails ‘new creative excellence’

Mipcom organisers are set to welcome 13,600 guests next week for an event themed around ‘a new creative excellence.’

Laurine Garaude

Laurine Garaude, director of event organiser Reed Midem’s TV division since 2009, told C21 4,500 buyers would be in Cannes, with 1,300 from VoD and SVoD platforms.

Garaude said: “The industry is in a big transformation at the moment and we’re observing a strong new wave of creativity in all genres, but particularly in fiction. We’ll be exploring the impact of OTT and VoD on creativity and innovation.

“This has been happening for a number of years but is continuing to accelerate and we’re seeing premium content coming in large quantities – we’ve never seen as much competition.”

There are 60 new exhibitors this year including pavilions from Portuguese and German delegations, while this year’s country of honour is Turkey.

Into the Stream is the other theme of the main event, as organisers are increasingly seeing digital channels coming to Cannes looking for carriage deals. A special forum featuring software allowing delegates to hook up with compatible platforms and services has been set up to that end.
Keynotes will include ITV CEO Adam Crozier and Mark Gordon from Entertainment One, along with a joint session by Lionsgate’s Jim Packer and Hulu’s Mike Hopkins.

Dana Walden and Gary Newman, Fox Television studios chairmen and CEOs, will be honoured on Wednesday evening as the 2015 Personalities of the Year. Fox’s The X-Files reboot will premiere on October 6, when Mulder and Scully make their comeback 13 years since the show was last on air.

The Art of More from Sony Pictures Television will debut on Sunday with its star Dennis Quaid in attendance, while The Last Panthers, a European drama coproduction by pay TV broadcasters Canal+ in France and Sky in the UK, will be shown on Monday.

Mip Junior takes place before the main Mipcom event this weekend at The Martinez, with sessions and keynotes from execs including Amazon’s head of kids’ programming Tara Sorenson, president of Hasbro Studios Stephen Davis and Nickelodeon’s creative and executive producer Dan Schneider.

As well as the sessions on what platforms are looking for and the International Pitch, there will also be debates about the current trend for rebooting classics like Thunderbirds versus working on new properties. Zorro: The Chronicles and Seven and Me are the two shows being premiered over the weekend.