The success of the London Screenings, which closed on Friday, March 3, 2023 after a hectic five days at various London venues, might — in a strange twist of fate — be the very thing that saves MIP-TV, set to take place in 43 days in Cannes.
Indeed, unlike MIPTV and MIPCOM, where buyers typically don’t have time to screen because they are meeting with different companies every half hour, at the London and L.A. Screenings, buyers are busy with nothing but screening. “[London] is a screenings market just like the L.A. Screenings,” said one buyer who recently returned from the U.K. This means that after the Screenings content sellers can leisurely meet with buyers at MIPTV for the actual negotiations.
A total of 28 distribution companies were at the London TV Screenings, including Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Banijay, and Cineflix, who were scattered among various venues such as the Soho Hotel, the Ham Yard Hotel, the Groucho Club, and the Dean Street Townhouse. Lionsgate, Paramount Global, Fox Global, and NBCUni hosted cocktail parties. Some companies hosted screenings for the first time this year, including Red Arrow, Newen, and Abacus, and all had English-language drama series to sell. Buyers came from across Europe, plus the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
This could mean that those companies might be needing to attend MIPTV in order to start the actual negotiations that were not possible at the Screenings. And indeed, some distributors who were previously planning to skip MIPTV are now committing to the Cannes market.
Reported Dermot Horan, director of Acquisitions and Co-productions, RTE Ireland: “It has been an incredibly busy week with screenings taking place from 9 a.m. to well after 8 p.m. In many cases two or more screening took place at the same time, leading to broadcasters and streamers splitting their teams,” he said.
Horan continued: “Some distributors had so many shows to present that they only showed clips of their new shows, or those new shows weren’t finished yet, so they just showed a few scenes. In the cases of some of the smaller- and medium-sized distributors, they showed full episodes.”
He went on to note that “It was a really well attended week, with buyers getting to screening rooms early to ensure they got a seat. There were lots of drinks and canapés, and those screening in the evening made sure they had plenty of food and drink to lure buyers to late screenings. Buyers from all over the world attended, with especially large numbers coming from Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. All of the screenings took place in the West End of London within one square mile so buyers could walk to all of them. It has become one of the most important weeks of the distribution calendar and is very much here to stay.”
At the London Screenings Paramount Global Content Distribution hosted a cocktail event for clients on Tuesday, February 28 by the pool at the Haymarket Hotel in London, and sent the above photo to VideoAge. Left to right are Matthew Downer, senior vice president, Regional TV Licensing; Philippe Renouard, senior vice president, Regional TV Licensing; Lisa Kramer, president, International TV Licensing; and Bernhard Schwab, senior vice president, Regional TV Licensing.
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