MIP TV 2008 Wrap UP

Well we're wrapping things up here in Cannes. It has proven to be a very hectic several days since my last post. Business has been surprisingly good, with a nice chunk of it coming from new potential customers. We're finally starting to see the positive effect of some of the growing economies around the world on the sale of independent films. Most notable among these for us has to be India. However maturing infrastructure in the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe has also enabled buyers from these territories to become real players.

The language preference was strongly for English. Also, except for a few channels, straight arthouse films had a very tough time here. We managed to slip our better foreign language films into some of the packages we've worked out with customers, but doing so was not easy.

The easiest product to sell was series, dramatic or non fiction. Erotic films seemed to hold their own as well. Since that is not what we specialize in, we're always prepared to dig a little harder and be a little smarter to place our product with the right buyers. Lifesize has moved pretty aggressively into English language product and we were able to more than hold our own.

We're looking forward to being home for the weekend. One week of this hustle is more than enough for me. We'll see more clearly what is what once deals finalize, but this MIP TV has proven to be more successful, at least on paper, than I expected.

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