Do you know your twerks from your tweets? Are you OTT about DTT? Are you disrupting your disruptive TV? Are you on-demanding? Audrey Iwanczyszyn, MD, Rua Multimedia Ltd, looks ahead to MIPCOM.
Keeping up with the next big thing is part of the challenge and while traditional television models are changing rapidly, MIPCOM has been the ever-present television event. It aims to draw together the old and the new, constantly shaping the TV landscape. So it was with some dismay that I learnt MIPCOM will celebrate 30 years next year. The fact I have attended most, I fear makes me more old than new, or ‘seasoned’ as our industry euphemism would describe me.
Whether or not you “have a good market” the bi-annual conference is like an old friend, you always make time for it, you miss it when you’re not there and when your circumstances change you call upon it to help you out.
MIPCOM started its life as VIDCOM, an October videocassettes adjunct to the established spring market of MIP; a brash new industry that exploded into life a mere few years before. Until 1981 the original site of The Palais is where the JW Marriott stands and before that (time immemorial) it was at the Noga Hilton. During the last year of MIP at the old Palais the original CEO of Viacom looked out at the building site stretching into the sea which was to become the current Palais and said “At least it will have a good view”. He could not believe the initial floor for the festival was to be below sea level, with no view out at all. In those early days, there were no security photos on the registration badges and when they were introduced one of the leading writers from Variety had a cartoon image from the art department as his photo.
Everyone has a MIP story and the “how did you get home” tales following the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull became the stuff of MIP legend. You weren’t anyone if you didn’t cycle, hike, swim, drive, train, tram, sail your way out of Cannes that year. Original stories from the early years are sometimes so fantastical that you never know if they’re more myth than legend but everyone likes to exchange them.
For example, at the first VIDCOM a Dutch video buyer who had previously been in the electrical and white goods business presented his Amex card to the distributors of the early Superman movies to pay the six-figure sum required to secure the rights.
A well known production and distribution company first secured contracts selling content to Cuba based on a set number of boxes of cigars per half hour, with an additional amount for the actual tapes. Later the cigars were sold to a major international hotel chain in exchange for cash.
My favourite: the concierge of the Majestic got a 4am call from the head of one of the majors asking him what time the bar opened. The concierge offered to take alcohol to his room explaining how late it was and the guy replied “no I wondered how long I’d been in here”. Apparently he’d gone behind the bar, passed out on the floor and woken up with the shutters firmly down, locking him in.
My first MIP was spent lamenting wearing heels as I trotted up and down the Croisette, with a bad perm, cigarettes and a fist full of Filofax. I attended meetings and made deals that were sealed with a fax.
I shall never forget three golden rules given to me by a MIP Personality of the Year winner:
1) Never stop anyone walking along. They are on the way to a meeting, catch them later at a bar
2) Every distributor is a deal junkie and MIP is the world’s biggest fix
3) ‘J’arrive M’sieur’ from the waiter in a bar really means I am going to serve all the French first, get to you when I feel like it but I still expect a big tip
Whilst usually so cutting edge, MIP too has been guilty of some of its own fashion faux pas over the years. Like proverbial shoulder pads the Palais has paraded a host of flash-in-the-pan start-ups that seemed to have so much promise but eventually came to nothing. While some fizzle, there are lots of pops too – and I am not just talking about the champagne.
Direct-to-consumer online video channels continue to have the last laugh, Netflix, Amazon and even YouTube are creating new opportunities for creative deal making, extending business opportunities and shaping our world in a way we never would have imagined 30 years ago. Innovation is everywhere. The relatively untapped potential social media has to transform the television experience will no doubt start to define many a MIP to come.
As the old adage goes, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” This is certainly true of MIPCOM. While processes in television are developing regarding distribution, devices, content delivery, app experiences and advertising, there’s still an entrenched, multi-billion dollar industry supporting it. In that respect, it’s good to know some things never change.
Have a good market!