Courtesy of S. d'HALLOY - IMAGE & CO/Reed Midem
The 58th edition of Cannes TV market MipTV, set to run from April 12, will be a virtual affair for the second consecutive year. The 2020 edition was also forced to go digital due to the pandemic.
Organizer Reed Midem confirmed their plans on Friday, noting that sister events MipDoc and MipFormats will also become virtual events. Further details of Digital MipTV 2021 will be announced in the coming weeks, said Reed Midem, though it’s still unclear whether the digital shift is a temporary solution for 2021 or whether it’s the new normal for the spring market, which has struggled in recent years to draw global attendees.
The fourth edition of drama festival Canneseries will take place in person at the Palais, as scheduled, from April 9-14.
Meanwhile, fall TV confab Mipcom, which is still the go-to industry event for the international community, will go ahead as planned as a physical event from Oct. 11-14, with a digital component running alongside.
“The decision to hold MIPTV 2021 online is due to the ongoing uncertainty over COVID-19,” said Laurine Garaude, television division director for Reed Midem, and Lucy Smith, deputy television division director, in a joint letter.
However, the executives also noted in the memo to industry delegates that MipTV has maintained the reservation of its scheduled dates at the Palais des Festivals during MipTV week and, “if conditions improve sufficiently by early 2021, our ambition would be to hold a small, in-person screenings-based event in Cannes to complement the digital edition.”
It’s not yet known when, exactly, the in-person event would be held.
Elsewhere, kids’ content market MipJunior will run just ahead of Mipcom, as usual, from Oct. 9-10.
In their letter, organizers said they had “learned a great deal in this extraordinary year.”
“Two points stand out very clearly across all of Reed Midem’s events: 1) the need for clear and, when possible, timely decision making, so partners such as yourself can plan for the year ahead; and 2) the desire to get back to doing business face-to-face,” said Garaude and Smith.
The global TV industry hasn’t had an in-person gathering since January’s NATPE and Realscreen Summit and February’s BBC Studios Showcase and U.K. Screenings. Now that all of these events, plus MipTV, have been confirmed as virtual in 2021, it leaves a big question mark around when, precisely, the industry will meet again away from their home computer screens.
Variety's Manori Ravindran contributed to this post.
https://variety.com/2020/tv/global/miptv-2021-virtual-1234866236/
