This week’s Water Cooler will review several important features and focuses of VideoAge publications at MIP. This should give you an idea of the main topics that will be the talk of the town.
Some of the main issues that are confronting our industry will be featured in the Monthly, which will come out just before MIP on Friday, April 9. The Daily will be published starting on Monday, April 12. The first Daily will focus on formats, which is the main topic of MIP on Sunday. On this subject there are several issues to be addressed, including how far the envelope can be pushed and how to deal with a proliferation of programs both on the air and on the pitch circuit.
Going back to the monthly for a minute, that edition of VideoAge will tackle many of the key stories hitting the fan right now: The Comcast-NBC deal; the Shaw-CanWest deal; Benjay, the new kid on the block; Spain’s TV networks’ sale, plus a look at China and India TV industries, and how the U.K. is coping with digital broadcast television. This just to mention a few of the some 25 stories planned for the MIP Issue.
The Daily, on Day 2 (Tuesday) will focus on Italy, starting with the RaiTrade Screenings possibly taking place in Portofino (near Cannes) a few days prior MIP. Plus, we’re sure you’d like to know what’s going on between Mediaset and Telefonica, or what the organizers of the Roma Fiction Fest are cooking up for July, and how Roma Cinema Fest in October will be coping with an overlapping AFM.
Day 3 of our Daily will focus on Germany: Europe’s second largest TV market after the U.K. (or are they now on par with the U.K.?). If you think that you understand German television, think again! In truth German TV is more Byzantine than TV in Italy, which used to be Byzantine, but now is only Machiavellian.
Day 4 of VideoAge Daily at MIP is a beauty. Firstly, it will deal with the upcoming new U.S. TV season (with pilots, pick up announcements and the like). Secondly, it will focus on children’s TV since, after MIP, it will become the official publication of the RAI-sponsored Cartoons on the Bay, held in nearby Portofino April 15-18.
On a final note, make sure to go over VideoAge’s MIP preview, which will report, among other things, how the U.S. studios view MIP, considering that four weeks later they have their major TV event: The L.A. Screenings.
