While most of us were otherwise preoccupied with our mundane day-to-day lives and having to endure endless and increasingly desperate-sounding political ads and texts, the lucky few who still have tentacles to international television got to escape to the spectacular environs of Cannes this past week, for what was perhaps the final incarnation of the fall version of MIPCOM to be held in the South of France.
Like almost everything else in what remains of the media business these days, right-sizing and cutting corners are the orders of the day, so it was at least to me less surprising than it may have been to those running the conference that the number of folks who actually got one last chance to experience the Croissette was one of the less upbeat takeaways from this past week. After all, DEADLINE had no less than three scribes–Max Goldbart, Stewart Clarke and Jake Kanter– on hand, and they collectively shared this observation:
Last year’s MIPCOM…had the spectre of October 7 hanging over it, with ramped-up security around the Palais and the fallout being felt from such a devastating day. Attendance this year was slightly down on 2023, however. “I wasn’t bumping and weaving my way between meetings,” was how one Canadian executive described footfall on la Croisette. The lower numbers (down nearly 5% to 10,500 from 2023) were perhaps a surprise given that MIPTV will not take place in Cannes next year and that some top U.S. executives, including Sony chief Tony Vinciquerra, made the flight over the Atlantic.
MIPCOM boss Lucy Smith put the lower numbers down to companies sending slightly smaller delegations, some of which made their decision “late in the day.” TV executives cited numerous factors for the slightly quieter year, including tight budgets, the rise of rival events including Content London, and the “always on” nature of video call meetings following the pandemic.
From what I’ve personally heard from others, that viewpoint was largely spin, apropos for an event such as this. The most active participants just happen to be among the most challenged monoliths. And they are pushing somewhat parochial meat-and-potatoes offerings in response to both their immediate internal needs and a prevailing mindset that the DEADLINE troika summed up thusly:
Effectively, buyers are still looking for the odd splashy tentpole, maybe a buzzy limited series here and there, but are mainly beefing up catalogs with cheaper, higher-volume, bankable and returnable fare. “What is nice is there was this disdain for procedurals and now people are saying, ‘You know what, the audience enjoys them and we should make new procedurals’,” said Warner Bros TV. Chair Channing Dungey, who also talked up the creative discipline required to make them. The trend could also be seen in two of the market’s most talked about shows, Paramount’s NCIS spin-offs Origins and Tony & Ziva, which were heavily advertised across the Palais des Festivals and attracted attendees to one of the most fun sessions with franchise stars Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly.
In her newly expanded role with WBD, Dungey has been charged with finding cost-effective, reliable content to replace the gaping hole that the likely loss of NBA basketball will leave TNT with, and her most proactive path is to share the burden with overseas partner with similar needs. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Scott Roxborough profiled several of the buzzier scripted projects in a preview from last week, so don’t be surprised if Dungey miraculously brings one of these to her portfolio at next spring’s upfronts, or perhaps those which Goldbart, Clarke and Kanter teased:
This procedurals buzz was evident in some of the sales coming out of the market and could already be seen in deals we broke on cozy crime shows like Cineflix’s Whitstable Pearl, while we revealed the BBC’s Doctor Foster and France’s High Intellectual Potential were the top-selling scripted formats of the past 18 months. “The ‘in-between’ is hard to rationalize,” a U.S. exec from a streamer told us, comparing the trend to what happened early last decade after the 2007-08 labor strikes. “This is about ordering ‘keeping the lights on’ shows and mitigating risk.” The exec, and many others, echoed Dungey’s notion that prioritizing shows that keep the dial moving is no bad thing, and many producers told us they at least felt a semblance of buyer strategy now appears to be in place.
Dungey, like most of her peers, are also being ordered by their exceptionally scrutinizing superiors to factor in more and more unscripted offerings. And a good deal of that level of traffic for format rights as well as outright sales was also transpiring, again per the DEADLINE three:
In an era of risk reticence, it was notable how nostalgia ruled the market. Studios were leaning heavily into their well-loved brands (Warner Bros. Discovery’s big formats were a Harry Potter baking competition and a Friends gameshow) to chalk up sales, while board game adaptations were a big deal. Mattel announced it had sold a telly version of Pictionary to British broadcaster ITV, while Talpa Studios and Hasbro joined forces to adapt Trivial Pursuit.
The latter announcements were especially noteworthy because the timing of MIPCOM has always been connected to the ability to tell strong ratings stories from well-publicized fall premieres. Indeed, that fact was the chief reason I got to experience one of these myself, a story I’ve previously shared. But now deals are getting done with game shows with nominal numbers from first-run syndication (PICTIONARY) and the CW (TRIVIAL PURSUIT). You don’t need big staffs or, for that matter, a large entourage of buyers to get that all done, and it can certainly be accomplished in cheaper venues. So the largely London-based international offices of content providers will merely hop on the Tube for future markets such as Content London rather than traipse into the South of France hoping to get a glimpse of some topless beachgoers.
But hey, London in autumn isn’t all that terrible, and the likely expansion of the slate of NFL games makes for some intriguing junket options. And the less obvious a success story is to a discerning buying community, the more I still hold out some pious hope that I might yet get another opportunity to hobnob with what’s left of this crowd in future falls.
You are free to call this a Cannes-do approach.
Until next time…