MUMBAI: Paris-based Reed Midem, which produces the world’s biggest and most successful content markets MipTV and MipCom in the French Riviera seaside town of Cannes, is all set to begin a series of road shows in India which will feature seminars and interactions in three cities – Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai - explaining how India’s content community can build its international sales and presence.
The first of these will be hitting Chennai on 20 Januray 2014. To be held at the Hotel Benzz Park in the T. Nagar business area, it is slated to be attended by a select group of invited professionals from the southern India city’s animation, TV, film distribution and value-added services sectors.
The theme of this year’s roadshows is “Content without boundaries.”
Down for the second time in about six months from the Paris headquarters of Reed Midem are director of new market development Ted Baracos and Asia sales head Paul Barbaro. Accompanying them is Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO Anil Wanvari, who is MipTV, MipCom and Midem India representative.
Says Baracos: “We were quite delighted with the response from India’s talented content creators when we had road shows in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai last year. Our theme then was: Can Indian content leave its stamp on the world? And India responded with a big yes. Attendance from the country was up almost 20 per cent as Indian companies came to MipCom in October 2013 to strike deals and pursue international market opportunties. So we decided to come back once again to connect with the community here.”
Adds Barbaro: “Several Indian companies such as Shemaroo, Green Gold, Viacom18, Zee TV, DQ Entertainment, AVCGI have understood the power of MipCom and MipTV and have successfully been using the platforms we provide to expand their content syndication, production and co-production businesses. We would like India’s new content creators to understand, be a part and exploit the new entertainment economy in which content is likely to cease having borders, it will travel everywhere. Hence we are here continuing our conversation with them through these road shows.”
“I have been attending Mipcom and MipTV for more than 14 years and have seen Indian broadcasters, animation studios, service providers simply grow thanks to the contacts and deals they strike there,” says Wanvari. “The entrepreneurialism and hunger to conquer new markets can only see India’s content being consumed and even co-produced in markets never thought about before. It is important that more and more Indian firms understand and exploit this opportunity. It can bring home hundreds of millions of dollars in much needed forex into the Indian economy and probably grow the next Endemol or Fremantle out of India.”
From Chennai, the team will then move to Bengaluru on 22 January and to Mumbai on 24 January. The entire road show has been put together and organised by Indiantelevision.com’s ITV 2.0 Productions division.
