India shining at MipTV

CANNES: Japan is the country of honour at this year‘s MipTV, but it could well be India‘s day just like at Mipcom in October 2007.

Indian broadcasters, producers and distributors will turn out in droves when MipTV commences in Cannes‘ famed Palais des Festivals in the south of France on Monday, 7 April. In fact, this is the strongest presence from India in MipTV‘s history.

Among the first timers who will be making their debut as exhibitors include: NDTV Imagine (Harsh Rohatgi), Studio 18 and Indian Film Company (Tanuj Garg), Idreams (Ashish Bhatnagar, Rohit Sharma), Bollywood Masala, and TBSL-FTPGI.

Among the oldtimers who are continuing with their presence include: Sony Entertainment, Zee Entertainment, Sahara One Entertainment, Eros Multimedia. Veterans Venus and Shemaroo are also exhibiting.

Others who are making their debut as participants include: Reliance Entertainment (Rajesh Sawhney, Tarun Katial and Ashutosh), Reliance Capital (Shalini Behl, Krishnamurthy). While Katial will be looking at acquiring formats, alliances, partnerships, Behl and Krihsnamurthy were seen screening documentaries at Mipdoc — which were produced in HD.

Other oldtimers who have made their way to the French Riviera include: Iqbal Malhotra, Viacom 18, VH1, Discovery, Endemol, DQ Entertainment, Imageventures, Infoseek, Optimystix, Star India (Keertan Adyanthaya, Sameer Rao), INX Media (Peter Mukerjea, Indrani Mukerjea).

The presence of India is up by around 20-25 per cent at the time of writing.

Says an observer: “The Indian television market has an insatiable desire for content with the explosion in channels. Also there is pressure from managements to find alternative sources of revenues and to syndicate content in other markets. Hence Indian TV executives are being forced to go to MipTV and Mipcom as it is one of the most focused markets in the world. And of course there is the new market called Amazia which should prove attractive for Indian digital and traditional content companies.”

MipTV and Mipcom director Paul Johnson says that research has shown that the two markets are responsible for almost $12 billion in programming transactions, a figure which can only go up with the explosion in the number of media outlets such as HD television, home video, online and mobile video.

Clearly, the Indian companies are just about beginning to understand that they can grab a piece of the action.