Increased participation from the Middle East, Turkey, Russia, India, China, the Ukraine and other emerging markets contributed to record attendance for the 2008 MIPCOM content market. The event closed on Oct. 17 with a headcount of 13,588 participants, a 1.6% increase over last year. A total of 4,519 companies from 103 countries registered, of which 1,779 were exhibitors. The number of international buyers grew by 7.2%, from 4,242 in 2007 to 4,573 this year.
‘With the growth of the ‘Metric’ countries (Middle East, Turkey, Russia, India and China), MIPCOM is now more than ever the market for professionals who want to negotiate business with new territories and develop content for all platforms,’ says Paul Johnson, director of television at Reed MIDEM, the company that organizes the event. ‘That’s why this year we put several tools in place to help with that, such as our MIP Accelerators matchmaking events. We will be enlarging them at MIPTV 2009.’
With a focus on Spain, the 24th MIPCOM hosted 32 conference sessions with more than 100 speakers and seven keynotes from top-level execs and experts including Chad Hurley, founder and CEO of YouTube; Gary Wang, founder and CEO of Tudou.com; Michael Eisner, former CEO of Walt Disney and founder of The Tornante Co.; Philippe Dauman, president and CEO of Viacom Inc.; Ze Frank, Internet pioneer, actor, presenter and lecturer; Gary Carter, president of creative networks and chief creative officer of FremantleMedia; and David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Communications.
MIPCOM Junior also got a boost with a 19% rise in the number of companies attending. A total of 1,143 programs (up 23% over 2007) were presented by 613 entities from 55 countries. More than three-quarters of these programs represented new material, according to Reed MIDEM.
