This year's MIPTV (through April 3) will take place in the midst of very turbulent times in both the film and TV industries. In early March, UK broadcaster ITV shed 600 jobs. Its smaller rival Five announced around the same time it would be making around a quarter of its 354 staff redundant. Advertising revenue has been shrinking. The cuts at the broadcasters come at a time when film slots on UK TV are already decreasing. (It remains to be seen how this upheaval will affect film buying at UK TV companies.)

Meanwhile, by common consensus, recent film markets such as the American Film Market in November and Berlin's European Film Market in February have been slow and cautious events at which buyers' wariness has been self-evident.

In such a climate, many observers argue, it is simply common sense for film sellers to attend the major TV markets in greater numbers. As industry veteran Tony Lytle, director of sales at Alki David's London-based production and sales outfit 111 Pictures, puts it: 'The independent sales agents need to cultivate the television stations more directly and not just rely on the theatrical deals to look after television.'

Lytle will be at MIP selling library titles including A Chorus Of Disapproval, starring Anthony Hopkins, as well as four new projects, including Fishtales, starring Billy Zane and Kelly Brook.

Traditionally, film sellers tend to bypass TV markets, using specialist TV distributors to sell their library titles for them at events such as MIPTV and MIPCOM. After all, TV events and film markets have very different rhythms.

'At MIPTV, you have a meeting every half an hour. If people aren't coming, they send an e-mail to excuse themselves. In cinema markets, it's much more informal,' says Geraldine Gonard, sales director at Spanish outfit Imagina International Sales. Imagina will be pushing the comedy Chef's Special (Fuera De Carta), which has sold widely theatrically, and the comedy sci-fi Sexykiller, which screened first in Toronto. When the theatrical sales slow down, Imagina sells directly to TV buyers.

Gonard adds she expects to have around 40 meetings in three and a half days at MIPTV. The MIPs are sharp, concentrated, business-oriented events. At film markets, by contrast, the pace is different. Buyers are attending screenings as well as having meetings. As one seller puts it: 'In cinema, you are following your heart. In TV you are following your bank account.'

What film sellers are discovering now, though, is that it can make sense to sell directly to TV companies and to cut theatrical distributors out of the loop altogether. As Gonard points out, in certain smaller territories 'the all-rights buyers have so little money that they can't give us minimum guarantees. It's the worst situation. They (the theatrical distributors) will come and say 'I am in a hole, I can't ask any credit from my bank because of the big financial crisis. Give me your movie with no minimum guarantee. After releasing theatrically and selling to TV and video, I will send you any royalties.''

Understandably, film sellers are deeply suspicious about working in this manner. If they find a TV station that will pay them an up-front fee for film rights, they will see that as a safer option than trusting that a theatrical distributor who hasn't paid a minimum guarantee will return royalties to them at some distant date in the future.

New options for film sellers

On the eve of this year's MIPTV, some leading European TV film buyers insist it is business as usual. Steve Jenkins, the BBC's head of films in programme acquisition, states his relationships remain 'primarily with the (theatrical) distributors and I think the sales agents are aware of that.'

As far as non-English language fare is concerned, the BBC will only acquire films which have secured a theatrical release in the UK. Jenkins doesn't attend MIPTV or MIPCOM. Instead he travels to the major film markets and festivals.

Even so, film sellers are now looking to do more at the TV markets than simply exploit their back catalogue, meet smaller distributors looking for video product and deal directly with TV stations. They now see these markets as places where certain kinds of film projects can be launched.

Increasingly, leading independent theatrical sales agents are setting up TV arms to handle their films at the TV markets. This is what London-based HanWay Films has done following last year's appointment of Charlotte Thorp as director of worldwide sales for broadcast and DVD.

'The point was to get much more directly involved with the broadcasters wherever possible so we could become more stringent with our rights and retain more control over where our titles are aired and retain a higher proportion of the licence fee,' Thorp explains.

HanWay has plenty of prestigious library titles including the Merchant Ivory archive, films by Wim Wenders and Peter Weir, and the movies produced by its founder Jeremy Thomas' the Recorded Picture Company. However, Thorp makes it a point of principle to arrive at each market with some new material in tow.

'We feel it is important to have fresh product to be able to offer buyers. It keeps them interested in coming back when you have the quality libraries that are always sitting there,' she says.

With this in mind, HanWay has recently acquired the back catalogue of Australian director Paul Cox, which includes Innocence. At MIPTV, the company will be introducing buyers to a UK mockumentary it has just picked up: David L Williams' Beyond The Pole. Starring Stephen Mangan and Rhys Thomas, it is about the first carbon neutral, vegetarian expedition to the North Pole. Thorp says she has had interest from UK theatrical buyers but HanWay's primary international target for Beyond The Pole is major broadcasters for which it could be an exclusive.

Boom in film channels

According to MIPTV itself, around 30% of the 4,000 buyers attending the market will be there to acquire movies. In other words, there are several hundred distributors on the prowl for films. In spite of the decreasing number of films slots on European mainstream free TV, the numbers of TV film buyers is on the rise. Film- focused pay-TV and cable-TV channels are picking up some of the slack as the major broadcasters shy away from independent films. (The majority of movies shown on international terrestrial TV are Hollywood studio films.)

Tom Zappala, senior vice-president, programme acquisitions and scheduling at Walt Disney-owned ABC Family, will be at MIPTV, taking part in a panel on international co-productions. 'Films are very important to ABC Family,' Zappala insists.

He says that MIPTV and MIPCOM are useful both for finding partners to board ABC Family's own projects as well as for scouting finished product.

'I will come back from each market and go through and recap each appointment I have had. I will take the channel leaders through each project that we've looked at while at the market. The projects that are on-brand and have potential for rating and creative, we will take to the next level. Generally, there are two or three that come out of each market. Whether they are movies, series or development, it's absolutely important that we have that information.'

For independent Dutch outfit Ignite Films, which sells international media rights to classic movies, Miptv and Mipcom are key markets. The company will be using Miptv to launch its high-definition, restored version of 1962 classic The Day Of The Triffids. Ignite does deals with major broadcasters such as France's ARD and the BBC as well as to video-on-demand (VoD) and DVD distributors.

However, one area which many film sellers attending MIPTV still express misgivings about is VoD.

'VoD is not profitable at all. The business model for VoD is not working yet. Unfortunately, it does not, right now, give us any revenue,' says Imagina's Geraldine Gonard. She says Imagina is contacted frequently by internet platforms that want to sell movies on demand for $2 or $3 a time. These internet companies do not offer minimum guarantees. They tend to ask for non-exclusive rights to films that they will show on a revenue-sharing basis. This is not a model that appeals to most rights holders, especially as returns from VoD tend to be tiny.

On the eve of this year's Miptv, there are mixed opinions about just how busy the event will turn out to be. 'People are nervous,' says 111 Pictures' Tony Lytle. 'Markets over the past year have been very cautious. People who would go to markets and buy 10 films are now buying six. It's more and more difficult to get the prices one used to get.'

'I have been working in this sector for 12 years and maybe this is the first time we'll see a quiet Miptv,' agrees Gonard. 'A lot of companies are not coming or if they come, they just send two or three people instead of 20 people.' Nonetheless, she predicts that by Mipcom in the autumn, business will be much brisker.

Still, attendees agree on the increasing importance of events such as MIPCOM and MIPTV for the film industry. Some sellers contend there is now a need to persuade more film buyers from leading TV stations to attend these events.

'With regard to feature film buyers from those broadcasters, I think that if the independents make the effort to go to those markets, the buyers from the major stations will also take a presence there,' suggests Tony Lytle. 'There will be more of a dialogue and hopefully that will translate into more sales.'

Whether or not the film and TV markets do draw yet closer in future, film sellers see the upside in attending the MIP events. As Vicente Canales, head of the international division at Spanish outfit Filmax points out, their timing can be very advantageous. 'MIPTV is taking place just before Cannes and MIPCOM just before AFM. That's very important just to introduce the films we are going to present in Cannes and AFM. For us, it is a way to create buzz and to let people know the movies we'll be presenting in the film markets.'

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