TV Execs Ponder Financial Fallout
by Elizabeth Guider - THR.com
CANNES -- How quickly and how widespread the effects of the global financial meltdown would ricochet onto the French Riviera was the question this weekend as a record number of TV execs and producers poured into this French city for the five-day worldwide sales bazaar known as MIPCOM.
Even before the actual program market gets underway Monday and as its kids offshoot MIPCOM Jr. wrapped Sunday afternoon, folks were metaphorically scanning the horizon of the yacht-filled Mediterranean port to see which way the wind was blowing.
Weather-wise, things were gloriously sunny and warm but there were unsubstantiated rumors that a number of execs had canceled their trips or that their contingents of sales people had been trimmed or that -- heaven forbid for Hollywood sellers -- prices for programming would fall.
The Hollywood heavyweights, meaning the top six studio program suppliers Warners, Disney, Fox, Universal, CBS Paramount and Sony, jointly raked in a whopping $7.5 billion in revenues from sales of movies and TV shows to foreign broadcasters in 2007.
Series like the "CSI" franchise as well as "House," "Lost," "Grey's Anatomy," "Without a Trace," "NCIS" and "Criminal Minds" have garnered record prices per episode in the last few years, but several of those are getting long-in-the-tooth. The strike-hobbled TV development season earlier this year has not exactly helped the start of the new primetime broadcast season Stateside, so pricing for those newcomer shows, however adamantly upbeat the sales teams are, has to be a concern. So far: freshmen series "Life on Mars" and "Gary Unmarried" are among those holding their own in the U.S. ratings; "Knight Rider" and "Ex-List" are so far sputtering. However, it's not ratings Stateside that has anyone here obsessing. It's the economy.
"It's way too soon for effects of the meltdown to seep in," is how one longtime MIPCOM-goer put it. "Everyone's just agog at what's going on in the financial markets. Everyone's holding on to the idea that people will still want to watch TV and hence, that our being here is the right place to be."
Jim Packer, co-president of MGM Worldwide Television, expressed the cautiously optimistic American view of things here in Cannes. "There has been no change in the level or number of meetings. Everyone seems to be here. Although there are indications of a pinch in advertising in the U.S., people are taking a wait-and-see approach and will be sounding out European broadcasters this week."
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