Water Cooler

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.

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With registrations for the upcoming DISCOP Africa (February 24-26 in Dakar, Senegal) running ahead of those signed up this time last year –– and a follow up event slated for September 1-3 in Nairobi –– Africa has clearly become a focal point for the television business.
             But to get a real assessment of the third DISCOP Africa’s status, VideoAge spoke to a few key players and asked them to provide some “nuts and bolts” information.
             Event organizers, Paris-based Basic Lead told buyers to list the nature of content they will be looking to acquire in Dakar, and the responses from those registered early for the event (147 buyers from 89 companies as of December 2009) are as follows:
Seventy-eight percent of buyers will be looking to acquire TV series, 65 percent films, 64 percent documentaries, 62 percent telenovelas, 62 percent children’s content, 61 percent sports, 60 percent educational content, 48 percent game shows, 42 percent formats, 22 percent “Nollywood” (Nigerian features), 18 percent news and current affairs, and seven percent music. Six percent of buyers will be attending DISCOP Africa with hopes of acquiring entire channels.
             Specifically, Ivan Rolande Dos Santos, buyer for Televisao Independente de Mozambique told VideoAge that he will be attending DISCOP Africa, “looking to acquire sitcoms, series and documentaries.” Dos Santos further noted that at the first DISCOP Africa, his company acquired three seasons of French football Ligue One from Canal Plus, five hours daily from France 24, and two seasons each of three different series from Sony.
             The number of buyers looking to acquire entire channels is also impressive and reflects two important factors in the fast developing Sub-Saharan audiovisual business: the impact of satellite and Pay-TV operators and a general desire to buy in volume.
             Of course, the thorny question became “how much do they pay?”  London, England-based research, consultancy and publishing house Balancing Act (BA), which specializes in Africa’s audio-visual, telecoms and Internet industries, conducted a survey of buyers at DISCOP Africa’s second edition. Upon dividing content into “Premium,” “Standard,” and “Low Profile,” BA’s CEO Russell Southwood concluded that the following represented an accurate range of pricing.
Premium:  U.S.$1,000 – 2,500 per hour.
Standard:  $300 – $500 per hour “for most programs.”
Low Profile:  $200 – $250 per hour.
             However, these are simply guidelines. BA reported that in some instances, documentaries, which tend to be in demand, may command $800 per half-hour at the top end – or, the same as some American and European films. In the same survey, BA also noted some instances of formats with large SMS potential being delivered on a JV basis with a share of the revenue.
             And then there is sport, which is the dominant TV content in Sub-Saharan Africa. And in most countries, “sport” means football. BA reported that in Nigeria, the English Premier League sold for  $28 million, and The Cup Of Nations went for $4.38 million. The latter event sold for  $3.4 million in Madagascar and $850,777 in Togo.
             Whatever the nature of content, two things are for certain; it’s worth a lot more now in Sub-Saharan Africa than it ever has been before, and DISCOP Africa is the place to realize the potential of that value.

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  Granted, it’s never been easy for a European-based company to get to Las Vegas. A connecting flight or two is usual needed. But it is only recently that the Europeans began fleeing NATPE in droves. This year there are only 20 European distribution companies exhibiting (a mere 10 percent of total exhibitors). Ten of those are from Spain. Only seven have internationally recognizable names: FremantleMedia, Endemol, Fireworks, Mediaset, Mondo TV, RTVE and Zodiak. There are also a small number of European distributors without suites, like Italy’s RaiTrade and Switzerland’s RSI. The BBC is on hand without a suite as well, but they are listed as a U.S. company, not a U.K. one.
              To find out the reasons for such meager participation and what it will take to make NATPE one of the top international TV markets again, VideoAge Daily went prowling.
              While NATPE is hoping that moving the conference from Las Vegas to Miami next year will be helpful for European TV distributors, the general consensus is that more needs to be done.
             “NATPE needs to think more like a European, which they are not doing,” said Gonzalo Cilley, president of Resonant TV. “They are just not welcoming enough. If they were like MIP and MIPCOM, there would be more efficient customer service. Vegas is really complicated and it just doesn’t have to be this way.”
             Maria Bonaria Fois, general manager at Mondo TV, had hotel suite booking problems and had no idea who to complain to. “We came all the way from Madrid and they didn’t have the dates of our arrival correct, so we had to pay extra. This market really needs to be better organized; at least with MIP and MIPCOM, we know exactly where to go if there is a problem. Here there is a lot of confusion.”
             Vegas is out of the way for Europeans, and thus Miami will be a more suitable place to do business, Fois added. “There’s only one direct flight from London, and most people have to change planes to get here. Add in immigration complications, and we’re awfully tired by the time we get here. So, to have a hotel booking issue is not good. They want us to join NATPE, but if we are not on the floor and all our business is conducted here in the suite, I don’t really see a need to.”
             Greg Phillips, president of Fireworks International, is happy to do business at NATPE no matter where the conference is located.
             “We’re very happy,” he said. “We had a busy morning and all things being equal, it will stay that way! As far as Miami is concerned, we will go wherever our customers are. There is no escape for them,” he quipped.
             Having a successful conference no matter its location is key if you arrange all your meetings beforehand, said Raul Molina Urunuela, content sales executive at RTVE. “But as we are concentrating on the Latin market, Miami will be better for business.”

By Karen Ruttner

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By Dom Serafini

Outside of the misinformation and disinformation brigade at Fox News, the whole world seems to know of the trouble caused to air travelers and airlines alike by the incompetent and incapable White House administration under president Bush.
     Even so, the latest salvo directed at air travelers by president Barack Obama’s administration took everyone by surprise. Yes, I was prepared for former Wall Street executives to roam the Obama cabinet, and thus resigned to accepting Goldman Sachs’ rule over the White House, but I never could have imagined such Bush-style incompetence as far as air travel was concerned.
     I’m talking about the attempted Christmas Day bombing on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. Nowadays, what does a terrorist have to do to get noticed? It seems that no matter what terrorists do or say beforehand, American government officials are oblivious to their actions. Mind you, this is a bi-partisan predicament. The biggest problem is that it’s the people the world over and never the incompetent U.S. government officials who end up paying the consequences.
     The father of the Christmas Day terrorist, one of the most respected bankers in Nigeria, walked into the American Embassy on November 19 and turned in his own son. And yet nothing happened. When his son tried to blow up the airplane over U.S. soil, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) simply stated, “the system worked [well].”
     I would have replied, “Too bad travelers now have to endure more discomfort, airlines risk loss of business and people feel less secure!”
     Traveling is a serious business, especially for us in the international entertainment industry, therefore anything the U.S. government does or doesn’t do affects us tremendously.
Among other new measures, here is a list of procedures that the various incompetents at U.S. government levels have imposed on us innocent travelers:
• Be rendered naked by security personnel’s body scanners.
• Refrain from all movements in the cabin and any access to personal items for a full hour before landing (apparently going to the bathroom one hour before landing is a cause for alarm to U.S. officials).
• Slower lines at security checkpoints mean many more missed flights.
• Chuck, Dick and Missy can no longer board a plane to and from the U.S. if they are not listed under their real names –– Charles, Richard and Melissa.
• Since airports (bless their designers) have restaurants outside the security check-in areas, be happy with some candies found near the gates when you get hungry before boarding.
     Paul Leyh, director of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), wrote in USA Today, “Protecting the transportation network in a post-9/11 world requires utilizing intelligence in developing sound security practices, protecting privacy and forging strong partnerships with industry.” One wonders where Leyh has been all this time, because according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general, “The TSA is failing to ensure the security of boxed cargo in passenger planes, leaving the airplanes at risk for a terrorist attack.” Unlike luggage, airplane cargo is not screened by the TSA. DHS’s inspector general Richard Skinner stated that “the TSA has not been effective” in tightening scrutiny of the 5.5 million kilos of cargo carried each day alongside luggage in passenger planes.
     At this point, air travel should be the litmus test of any U.S. President: if one is able to solve the predicament that travelers face today, that Chief is capable of resolving all other problems.
     In the U.S., national security is handled by the CIA, FBI, NSA, TSA, the Department of State, the U.S. Marshals and the DHS. Plus, at the local level, police departments have their own counter-terrorism squads (like the SWAT team) for a total of 16 agencies (without counting the military’s own security and investigative forces). Basically, this constitutes a platoon of people operating domestically and internationally, but still unable to digest a simple tip from the father of the terrorist.
     Why not give the job of keeping the U.S. safe and air passengers comfortable to the Israelis? They seem to know how to handle, deal with and prevent terrorist attacks. Israelis are careful about what goes in a plane’s cargo area and pay close attention to who is getting on board, not just what is in the luggage. That’s the way to go to make traveling to a TV market more painless.

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