“The theme of the up-coming NATPE Miami market is ‘Linear Plus’ because linear television still generates huge business worldwide and still drives the content market-place,” said NATPE president and CEO JP Bommel during a lunch meeting with VideoAge in New York City in late October.
Over some pasta aglio e olio, Bommel also illustrated NATPE’s “six shows in one track” strategy. “NATPE Miami,” he said, “is a one-stop shop for the global commerce of content and it is made of six distinct, yet integrated elements,” which are, as follows:
Content Evolution: This program wants to underscore NATPE’s mission as a content association, which drives business connectivity. This aspect is growing with more exhibitors and an increased number of pavilions, including ones from the U.K., Spain, France, Turkey, Korea, Japan, China, and Brazil.
International Focus: NATPE Miami 2020 will once again welcome the industry’s high-flying international leaders among the buying and selling contingents.
Station Groups: Once again NATPE will bring together the executives who run local U.S. TV stations and who make mission-critical programming decisions.
Brands and Content: Advertising leaders and global consumer brands will be at NATPE. This intersection of brands, advertisers, and creators gives participants exclusive insight.
Unscripted: This category of sessions and events is comprised of creators, producers, stars, buyers, and distributors from all aspects of the reality content genre. The Unscripted NATPE agenda explores U.S. and international formats, and the challenges and opportunities encountered in the genre and across all distribution points.
Streaming Plus: The future of digital content is a pillar of NATPE’s marketplace and conference.
Bommel added that NATPE Connect, which was launched at NATPE 2018 and is part of the “Content Evolution” segment, will once again connect approximately 40 international buyers with content distributors who need to develop new business relationships.
Naturally, NATPE, the Los Angeles-based trade association, will be monitoring social and political developments throughout the world, as they could affect the outcome of an otherwise promising TV market. Special attention will be given to the turmoil in Latin America (specifically Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Honduras).
NATPE 2020 will mark the 10th consecutive year that the market will be staged in Miami Beach, Florida. It’ll take place at the Fontainebleau Hotel, January 21-23, meaning it’ll begin a day earlier than the 2019 edition.
VideoAge Daily was there in Miami in 2011 — as it was at the market’s various locations throughout the previous 31 years. NATPE Miami 2011 started on a Sunday, and VideoAge’s Day 1 Daily on January 23 ran the headline, “Industry Celebrates Mart’s Rebirth,” to commemorate its move from Las Vegas.
Indeed, the market’s resurgence was clear from the fact that VideoAge Daily was able to return to three editions in Miami, a practice that had been abandoned in Vegas, where the poor business environment barely supported two editions. (In 2013, with increasing consolidation, VideoAge Daily returned to its two NATPE editions.)
Other front-cover topics included DTT in LATAM and VoD in the U.S.
On the Day 2 Daily, the front cover stories covered the large number of telenovelas produced annually in Latin America (95), the large number of top-level buyers who’d come to the market from all over the world, and retrans fees that, having hit $574 million that year, had started to become “serious” money for local U.S. TV stations and national TV networks.
The Day 3 Daily heralded the return of “the 800-pound gorillas,” as the big U.S. studios were then labeled, and ran a story about the U.S. syndication business.
NATPE’s return to Miami Beach (its first time was in 1994, just after the terrible earthquake that hit Los Angeles) in 2011 generated 10 parties and marked Dom Serafini’s 600th My 2¢ VideoAge editorial, all of which were calculated to amount to a total of $12.
For NATPE 2020, organizers expect more than 400 exhibitors from 70 countries. As far as the composition of participants, organizers reported that 32 percent are content buyers, 24 percent are content distributors, and 10 percent are “general management.” The remaining 34 percent combines member of the press, panelists, and support personnel.
Of the total participants, 83 percent come from the Americas, 10 percent are from Europe, and the balance hail from Asia.
NATPE organizers don’t release specific attendance figures, but it is speculated that more than 3,500 people will be at the Miami event next year.
Finally, about the reported competition between NATPE Miami in January and MIP Cancun in Mexico, which concluded some 60 days before NATPE Miami, Bommel reported that he was invited to a meeting with MIP Cancun organizers while in Cannes for MIPCOM in October, but no issues were raised. Bommel is confident that both buyers and sellers attending MIP Cancun will still need NATPE Miami to finalize deals that were initiated in Mexico.
By Dom Serafini
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