Water Cooler

By Leah Hochbaum

Seminars on digital television, hardware and software distributor exhibitions, and an industry-wide awards gala have characterized the Jornadas since its inception. And this year’s 16th annual edition of Latin America’s premier trade show, to be held October 31-November 2, at the Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel & Convention Center, promises to give attendees more of the what they’ve come to expect from the event.

Jornadas, the international cable “days,” is, as usual, organized by the Asociación Argentina de Televisión Por Cable (ATVC) a.k.a. Argentine Cable Television Association. The event gathers cable operators from Argentina and other Latin American countries, as well as worldwide industry leaders, educators, regulators, public officials and vendors, thus making it the Southern Cone’s major TV industry event.

Cumulatively, during the course of the three-Jornadas show, some 3,000 visitors are expected. Companies exhibiting include Artear, Claxson, Fox Latin America, MTV Networks Argentina, Televisa, Motorola, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and MGM Network Latin America.

“We believe that it is an event which Telefe couldn’t miss,” said Daniel Otaola, head of sales at Argentine distributor Telefe International, a company that has been exhibiting at Jornadas since the early years of the conference, and will attend once again this year. “It gathers all the members of the industry. Also, the participation in this type of trade show is an important part of the commercial policy of Telefe in distributing channels in the pay-TV sector.”

Alejandro Bernal of Colombia’s Caracol Television concurred. “Jornadas is quite important to us because all cable companies will attend. It is a very good way to meet with systems from the Southern Cone, since it has a great presence from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and, to a certain extent, Peru. Jornadas is also a good opportunity to review the digital issues that concern the industry.” Finally, he concluded, “there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we want to be there.”

Jornadas 2006 will include a number of conferences, including “Jornadas Digital ATVC,” a two-day seminar full of hand-on reports about digital cable services, which will be held October 31 and November 1.

“We believe digitalization is extremely positive for the industry,” said Peter Weil, senior vice president of Content, Discovery Networks Latin America/Iberia, when asked his thoughts on the importance of such a seminar. “It gives viewers additional channel options, better quality and sound, and access to interactive television and services. Discovery Networks is at the vanguard of the industry’s digital revolution by offering content globally and locally. Our three digital channels — Discovery Turbo, Discovery Civilization and Discovery Science — are currently present in numerous countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Chile.”

Presentations will be made by executives from Motorola, TVC Latin America, Digital Cable World, BCD and Aurora Networks, which will also be exhibiting at the market.

Other conferences include one on programming, to be held on October 31, as well as one on regulatory issues on that same day.

“One of the focuses of Jornadas is the cycle of conferences dealing with topics of relevance to Argentina’s industry,” commented Walter Burzaco, president of the ATVC. “The conference will have renowned local and foreign speakers who will present their views on the social and economic impact of new technologies, analyze key issues like the industry regulatory issues, and discuss the role of the cable industry in the future of our Argentina.”

The ATVC Awards Dinner will take place the night of October 31. Prizes will be awarded to the best cable TV productions, with the intent of stimulating the production of more local programs.

Said Burzaco, “A public debate involving all the players in our industry is fundamental towards the development of digital convergence.”

VideoAge has two reporters at Jornadas, and a full report on the conference will be available in the November/December issue of VideoAge.

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By Leah Hochbaum

At this year’s 22nd annual MIPCOM, held October 9-13 at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, it was business as usual, with a relatively relaxed market that left attendees asking: “Is there no next big hit?”

“There’s no one thing galvanizing the industry right now,” said CABLEready president and CEO Gary Lico. “This is the 20th time I’ve been to [a market in] Cannes, but this is probably the calmest it’s ever been. TV’s become more homogenous, so no one’s going crazy over the next Survivor or the next Friends like in past years. Everyone with a booth had an opportunity to be noticed. It creates a more democratic environment.”

This more independent-minded market helped CABLEready with It Could Happen Tomorrow, a new series from the Weather Channel that Lico said saw a lot of interest at MIPCOM. “It has something for everyone. It’s science. It’s a documentary. And it’s weather porn,” he added with a laugh. “It was nice to come to a market with something that worked across so many different channels.”

Andrea Stokes of Canada-based Canamedia concurred that the lack of one clear-cut breakout hit “makes life more lucrative for lifestyle and documentary distributors such as ourselves.”

Indeed, the market could prove to be a profitable one for Canamedia. “We had serious interest from major broadcasters worldwide in our new HD science/adventure/travel series Angry Planet, and got a great response for our new HD political documentary Beyond the Red Wall: The Story of Falun Gong,” she said.

Yet, while much of the talk about MIPCOM was about what wasn’t there (namely a big hit), most of it was about the deals being made.

“The market was definitely a busy one,” said Oliver Kreuter of Bavaria Media, which finalized a string of package deals while in Cannes, including an agreement to send 20 German TV movies to Iran’s QMIP. Arab Radio and Television also chose 10 titles from the distributor’s catalog for one of its pay-TV outfits, while, on the co-production side, the company managed to find five Eastern European partners for its new avalanche disaster movie Val Montana, including the Czech Republic’s Nova TV, Hungary’s RTL Klub, Slovakia’s TV Markiza, Romania’s TV Romana and the Ukraine’s IC-TV.

“The Iran deal is the result of some lengthy talks and negotiations by one of our sales managers way ahead of the market,” said Kreuter. “She was able to provide a suitable selection which ultimately was rewarded at MIPCOM.”

RHI Entertainment also clinched a raft of deals while in France. “Unlike our last MIPCOM which, thanks to being flooded out of the Palais, resembled a scene from our upcoming miniseries Tidal Wave, this market was dry, sunny and very busy,” said Joel Denton, president of Production and Distribution for RHI. The company signed an output deal with France’s M6 to acquire its slate of upcoming miniseries, TV movies and library catalog.

Australia’s Beyond Distribution also signed some contracts, selling children’s series Milly, Molly and Amazing Extraordinary Friends to ABC in Australia, and is currently finalizing negotiations for sale of the series in other key territories. The company also concluded major pre-sales for a third season of long-running kiddie fave Backyard Science, as well as inking an agreement with Australia’s SBS to license the new season of myth-debunking series MythBusters.

“This particular market was the best yet,” said Fiona Crago, general manager of Distribution at Beyond. “We came home very excited by the new opportunities presented and we felt that the programming that we were representing was stronger and more commercial than ever.”

For more detailed information about MIPCOM, look in the November issue of VideoAge International for Lucy Cohen’s wrap-up of the action.

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By Leah Hochbaum

As the U.S. baseball season drew to a close, sports programmers got down to business at the 17th edition of SPORTELMonaco, which, along with sister-markets SPORTELAsia, SPORTELDubai and SPORTELAmerica, is considered by industry insiders to be one of the most important places to make and break sports programming deals. As they say in the sports world, it’s game on.

The event, held in Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum October 16-19, drew 1,550 participants and 126 exhibitors from 717 companies and 62 countries. There were 143 stands, up from last year’s 118.

“We’ve added some 27 stands from last year,” said William Vitale, chairman of Vital Communications, which does the sales and marketing for SPORTEL. “It’s a very strong market.”

He attributes this strength to a revitalized world economy in a post-9/11 world. “Thank God we haven’t had any SARS or bird flu this year,” he said, referring to the 2003 Hong Kong market that had to be cancelled due to an outbreak of the SARS virus. “Also,” he added, “mobile content is fueling a lot of new business. It’s a trend we’ve noticed in the last couple of years.”

Indeed this trend has been catching on with a slew of SPORTEL attendees. Ettore Botta, vice president of Sales and Marketing for Sandra Carter Global, said that in addition to looking forward to a lot of interest in pre-Olympics programming, and selling soccer, baseball and golf from its sports catalog, the company is hoping that SPORTELMonaco will be “tremendous for mobile and broadband” now that Sandra Carter has a series of Golf pro tips, which run 80 seconds each and are designed for mobile.

“We are, as everybody else is, orienting ourselves to the mobile market. One of the things we’re very excited about this year is our partnership with conVISUAL, a German company experienced in mobile interactivity,” said Botte, adding that Sandra Carter is representing conVISUAL in the U.S. and South America. “Mobile interactive TV is only starting right now in the U.S. and we are launching an interactive morning news program with Fox-TV in New York that will have loads of polling and sweepstakes.”

But while some companies came to Monaco for mobile, others were simply in it for traditional programming.

“We’re here to renew contracts for next year,” said RAI Trade sports director Massimo Migani on the first day of the market. “We don’t expect any big issues, but we’re still crossing our fingers that everything will go well.” The company, which distributes minor sporting events, including kayaking and basketball, focuses mostly on soccer and cycling. “Soccer is really everywhere in the world and we are the representatives for Italian soccer.”

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) also came to the market with buying and selling in mind. “SPORTEL is one of the must-do lynchpin content distribution conventions of the year,” said WWE deputy chief executive of International Television Andrew Whitaker. “We come to renew friendships and establish new business opportunities with regions that we are currently involved with and those which we are not.” The company brought a library of wrestling series to SPORTEL, including Raw, SmackDown, AfterBurn, WWE Experience, as well as a number of specials, including Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and SummerSlam.

Other companies in attendance include Brazil’s Globo TV Sports, Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW-TV) and ProsiebenSat.1 Media, as well as Italy’s Mediaset and U.S.-based ESPN International and Fox Sports International.

During the little downtime at the market, there were conferences a-plenty to attend, including one on Tuesday October 17, entitled “Preparations for the Beijing 2008 OIympic Games.” Other events included a roundtable on “Opportunities in Digital Gaming” on Wednesday, October 18, and an international symposium on “New Competitors in the Sports Rights Arena” held on Monday, October 16.

“When you bring the buyers, the sellers come, and vice versa,” said Vital Communications’ Vitale. “There are a lot of new opportunities to be found through networking. This is simply a must-attend market for those who want to do business in the sports arena.”

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By Dom Serafini

This is it! I’m fed up with trade organizations. I’ve lost count of how many I belong to. Possibly 15, but I’m not sure. The bills keep coming in and I pay automatically, as if they’ve collectively programmed me as a money machine.

While researching the subject, I discovered that, in the U.S. alone, there are some 50 trade organizations divided into: entertainment, television, communications and advertising industries. This is without counting the Internet, magazines, circulation and journalism.

The last straw, however, came from an organization that decided to raise my fee from $500 to $1,000 (luckily, there is always the “last straw”).

The letter announcing the 100 percent fee hike was my wake-up call. After receiving it, I had to sit down and, while staring at it, started to think: “What am I getting for the over $2,250 (and soon to balloon to $2,750) I’m paying in fees to all these associations?” “Very little indeed,” I had to admit.

Wouldn’t it be better to contribute that kind of money to Gillian Rose’s “The Rosemary Pencil Foundation,” which is helping children in Africa get an education? Reportedly, when Gillian (whom I call by her middle name, Angela, because it sounds Italian) got the same $1,000 increase note, she promptly resigned. Gillian, by the way, ran VideoAge’s London office when, in the mid ’80s, it was based in the U.K.

In the words of another member, commenting on the huge increase: “The fee is outrageous, but since I’m exempt, I’ll stay on. I agree, though, that the association doesn’t do anything for its members.” Stated another member: “It’s the only association I belong to, and since I had budgeted $1,000 for these kind of expenses, I think, I’ll stay in, even though I only participate in what they do once a year.”

One London-based association I belong to even stopped sending me their magazine and another stopped sending even a basic online newsletter.

So, after making a cursory mental list of the associations I pay to belong to, and realizing that it’s really “mental” to be a part of all of them, I decided to go on a canceling spree, with the exceptions of the London-based Royal Television Society (RTS), the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (ACCT), and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

I’ve decided that if all the rest want me as a member, they have to pay me and not vice versa. After all, what do most of them do for those of us in the industry? Very little, indeed.

It is as though we members are at their service, and not vice versa. We are required to help at their various fundraising functions (they’re always in need of funds, and for what?), to become judges, to attend time-consuming meetings, to approve management salary increases. Again, what do they do for us?

Next time I’ll only join an organization if their motto is: “Ask not what you can do for your association; ask what your association can do for you.”

When I first joined most of the organizations, they were like one-man bands: Lean and mean, with a few members everyone knew personally and organized great get-togethers. Today, the same organizations have “boards,” “committees,” and layers-upon-layers of management. They’re becoming like post offices: bureaucratic labyrinths for Byzantine politics. A friend, who used to run one of these organizations quit after becoming fed up with a finicky board comprised of people who had nothing else to do.

When I was running for Italian political office, I asked two TV trade organizations to announce the news to its members, with the understanding that it could be helpful to the industry. One spokesperson answered that the organization couldn’t be involved with politics, and promptly invited Sen. Hillary Clinton to a function to speak publicly about… politics (and, implicitly, to talk about both her senatorial re-election and presidential candidacies); while at the other association, one of the usual out-of-work board members advised against it.

Now, let’s not bundle them all together. Out of the various associations, I like the RTS because of its fantastic seminars. I value ATAS also because of its publication and the fact that they’re responsive to members’ needs. I’m fond of the Canadian entertainment industry and the ACCT’s awards (even though the association needs someone who’s more awake to run it). I’ll keep the membership in ACINA, the North-America Association of Italian Journalists, but, for the life of me, I cannot find any redeeming value for any others.

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