CANNES — For years, reports of MipTV’s terminal decline were somewhat exaggerated. Now, however, they’re real. On March 26, RX France, organizers of MipTV, announced the launch of Mip London, over Feb. 23-28, 2025. MipTV’s 2024 edition will be its last.
Attendance, once 10,000 in 2018, 9,500 in 2019, had plunged to 5,510 on-site delegates last year. That still made it the second biggest TV event in the world. Still dwindling participation this year, is down to around 3,000.
What a MipTV swan song, bulwarked by Canneseries, can deliver, is another question. 10 takes on this year’s edition:
MipTV Sticking to Its Guns
Traditionally, MipTV delivered a straight sales market where sales companies or divisions hold back-to-back meetings with distributors who get links to their shows. History has hardly been on MipTV’s side. As simply raising the finance for a show in an environment of rising costs and declining commissions has become more and more of a challenge, buyers have flocked to Series Mania, a traditional co-production forum, or to the London ITV Screenings to screen finished shows with might promise discoveries, delivered by many of the biggest players in international.
For its finale, MipTV will stick to its guns, delivering a few highlighted shows, a diminished but still considerable conference strand, and a return to a weekend MipDoc, hosting an on-site video library, a hit down the years.
Big Titles
Variety is publishing its own Hot Picks. The biggest titles may be in unscripted: NBC-BBC’s “Destination X,” showcased at a Saturday case-study, and natural history event series “The Americas,” narrated by Tom Hanks, plus three Canneseries out-of-competition players: Prime Video’s “Fallout,” with Ella Purnell and Kyle MacLachlan, based on the post-nuclear video game; Apple TV’s “Franklin,” starring Michael Douglas as the founding father on a diplomatic mission in France; and Disney+’s “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld,” from Gaumont, set in 1972 Paris. “Fashion, passion and betrayal: Watch how Karl becomes Lagerfeld,” Canneseries promises.
The Stars
Douglas and all key French cast are expected for “Franklin” heading a 50-strong delegation. “Fallout” stars Ella Purnell (“Yellowjackets”) and Kyle MacLachlan (“Twin Peaks”) will receive in person the Madame Figaro Rising Star Award and Canal+ Icon Award. Daniel Brühl will promote “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld.” Pierre Niney, one of the biggest stars of his generation in France, will talk up “Fiasco.” Famed French-Moroccan comic Jamel Debouzze opens Canneseries with “Terminal,” his return to sitcom.
Buzz Titles
Thomas Vinterberg’s “Families Like Us,” from Canal+ and Studiocanal, is currying large expectation; “Maxima” – think a good-humoured Dutch “The Crown” but a limited series – has gone off the shelf quickly. There’s good word on “The Zweiflers,” the first major series on a Jewish family in contemporary Germany, and on parenting dramedy “This is Not Sweden,” “Living on a Razor’s Edge,” with star/director Júlio Andrade (“Under Pressure”) seen as a Canneseries best actor contender, and on tense sci-fi mystery thriller “Moresnet.” In Canneseries’ doc competition, buzz is building on “Hard to Swallow,” dubbed a poetic food show from Nigerian chef-writer Tunde Wey, and “Hidden,” a four part geopolitical thriller about a new age of espionage.
So Where’s the Growth?
The elephant in the room for much foreseeable MipTV industry debate, and a big question for the production sector for going on 12 months, says Ampere Analysis’ Guy Bisson, is: “Since streaming commissions have dried up to a large degree, where do we go next in terms of growth?” There’s some kind of consensus answer, which cuts several ways. “We are moving from the old world where commissioners commissioned everything. Now there are new owners of IP who start to think about its long term value rather than giving it all away in a full commission,” says Timo Argillander, at investment fund manager IPR.VC, whose biggest investments are film slates with A24 and XYZ Films. “The streaming market is getting more focused, moving from full commission to very targeted acquisitions of content in something specific,” he adds. “With the return to licensing, there should be more opportunity to explore partnerships, co-productions between public broadcasters, streamers, public broadcasters and other public broadcasters and large producers,” says Bisson.
Another Industry Macro Change
Also, the industry may be entering a new era. “The first era of streaming was about growth, customer acquisition and geographic expansion, re-engineering the pay TV model. Now we’re right at the beginning of the re-engineering of the free TV business, finding out how old business models like free TV and advertising fit into the direct-to-consumer landscape,” says Bisson. A base optimism remains: “People are dedicating more time and more money to video based content on different kind of devices. That’s the starting point for my optimism,” says Argillander. “I suspect that in let’s say within 6 to 12 months, we’ll enter yet another period of turnaround where we start to see a sort of recovery, driven partly by the better finances of the streamers because of their rationalization,” Bisson adds.
The Zeitgeist Reigns
Rarely have shows been so readily influenced by the zeitgeist. There’s a drive for lighter fare or a release from headline gloom and doom – think Canneseries romcom “Dumbday,” about seven mega-duffouses saving the world. Social issue drama is adding an entertainment drive. All3Media Intl’s “Boarders,” ITV’s “The Gathering” and Beta Films’ “Soviet Jeans” all have an agenda: equitable access to elitist education, teen angst and parental control, and freedom-pushing counter culture in 1979 Soviet Latvia. Yet, these series are broadly upscale, fast-paced entertainment.
A Reckoning
Yet “Everybody knows,” Leonard Cohen famously sang. But not when it comes to history. A wave of series are hitting the market or festival circuit this early year, however, which show how the good guys lost – “Beta’s “Operation Sabre,” Globo’s early “Living on a Razor’s Edge,” both Canneseries titles; and Fremantle’s Series Mania winner “Herhaussen – the Banker and the Bomb.” Or they show the dice was loaded: Frank Spotnitz’s fascinating “Nuremberg,” set up at Constantin. Younger generations think the captain lies. Everybody’s buying into that scepticism. But in an unsteady world, it has become increasingly beholden of TV to present not just problems but small screen solutions. “People want to feel like they are still grounded, that they have some control, some way to positively affect their futures,” documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter, who delivers one of MipTV’s keynotes, told Variety.
AI: No Small Matter
Writing an AI report, “I started out as an AI skeptic. I could see it was an obviously useful tool, but I couldn’t see how it would create a fundamental shift in the way that content is made and distributed. I’ve probably come round to the point that I can and do believe it is fundamental,” says Bisson. With future industry growth, AI looks set to provide another big MipTV focus. “[AI will be] an important theme and motif of everything that happens in Cannes,” said AlixPartners managing director Mark Endemaño who will deliver the second big keynote of MipTV 2024. “There’s no doubt that AI will take people’s jobs,” he says. “We’re seeing that already. The disruptive effect on the creative industries will be enormous,” he told Variety.
Mip London
The other big MipTV talking point will inevitably be Mip London. Lucy Smith looks set to drill down on the event at a MipTV presentation. Several reasons look to be behind the move: An increased number of industry events in the first half of the year, the distribution shift to earlier in the year and to London; continued consolidation and reduced budgets across the global TV industry. Mip London hardly looks an MipTV replica, being more about screening and meeting rather than exhibiting. “These days, marketplaces are less valuable than meeting places,” says film sales agent Antonio Saura. That may also be true about TV.
