After all was said and done, the international TV sector survived the first of the three consecutive TV markets in Miami. Now, it’s time to get ready for the second and third ones in February. The first one, Content Americas, was a LatAm-focused market, while the other two, Realscreen Summit and NATPE, are billed as “global.”
Content Americas started on Monday, January 20, which was a busy day indeed, with the presidential inauguration and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the U.S., the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and preparations getting underway for the Sundance Film Festival (starting today in Park City, Utah). On opening day, Content Americas’ organizers reported 2,021 delegates, including 1,000 buyers and 175 exhibiting companies.
One of the things that returning attendees made sure to keep an eye on at this year’s Content Americas was the slow elevator situation at its traditional venue, the Downtown Miami Hilton Hotel. This year, the wait at peak traffic times to get to the exhibitors who were holding court in suites was five minutes at most — a definite improvement over last year’s event.
The other issue to monitor was how the folks in charge of the Rose d’Or Latinos Awards dealt with the overcrowded main conference room. This time around, they did better with the overflow, funneling people into the adjacent foyer, which was also the venue for the subsequent awards party.
Then there was the sometimes-fraught situation of determining who was planning to attend all three Miami events. Some participants went back to Los Angeles and were set to return to Miami 11 days later for NATPE.
Reports of the business conducted at Content Americas were overwhelmingly positive, with enthusiastic reviews from exhibitors, some of whom attended for the first time, like Sonia Fleck, the Singapore-based Bomanbridge boss.
As VideoAge Daily pointed out in its Wednesday edition, the conference and seminar sections did not present any major disruptions for the buyers and sellers in attendance. Among the most significant ones was a keynote from Telemundo’s Luis Fernandez, who presented the Miami-based company’s overall strategy, and Content’s big kids TV playout, with five separate seminars focusing on the business of children’s television, which started at 10 a.m. on Wednesday and continued up until 3 p.m.
There was also a presentation from Disney Latin America’s Leonardo Aranguibel in which he discussed commissioning needs, opportunities in co-production, and new business models.
All in all, there were a total of 24 sessions spread over the three-day event that did not take too much of buyers’ time away from the market’s floors.
Pictured above: The WAWA (Worldwide Audiovisual Women’s Association) photo op; posters of Content Americas’ exhibitors; the market’s floor: tables, stands, and pavilions; one of the conferences; a press conference on the market floor announcing the formation of CeciG in Peru; post Rose d’Or Latinos Awards party.
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