Cannes, France: Business was good all the way around at this year’s mipcom, with most participants attributing this surge to the multiplication of specialty channels. But the good news has a downside: plummeting program prices.

‘We’re selling to more people but – when we have people coming in offering $200 to $300 for an hour – you can’t make sales that return $17 to the producer. At some point you don’t even bother,’ says Paul Black, managing director of Regina-based Minds Eye International, on the final day of the show.

‘All these new channels need product because they have to get up right away, so they’ll make us an offer but the offer won’t be what we might have expected previously for that market. Prices are not going up. If you’re starting up a channel you buy up whatever’s cheap.

‘I don’t care if I turn down five sales if I wouldn’t make money on them. The price is the price. If they can only give you $400, we’ll have to say no,’ says Black.

Sales still went well for Minds Eye, with The Incredible Story Studio selling to Turkey (52 x 30) and Sweden (26 x 30); Mentors selling to France (26 x 30) and to a pan-Latin American broadcaster (26 x 30), and documentary packages going to Korea (50 hours) and the u.k. (20 hours).

The hunger for content means series are more sought after than one-offs. ‘The more catalogue you have the more interest you have from buyers because they don’t have to go elsewhere,’ says Black. ‘Convenience comes into it. They sign one deal, send one cheque.’

Documentary continues to be strong.

Regina’s Partners in Motion reports a strong mipcom, having signed on two Swedish companies: Manus AV-Produktion ab and Draupner Film ab as coproducers for their three-part Viking documentary series Land of the Wooden Gods, budgeted at us$200 000 per hour, to be delivered in October 2001.

Meanwhile, over at the Filmoption stand sales were strong, with a package deal for 26 hours inked with TV3 Catalunya of Spain. The first series of Frontiers of Construction (13 x 60) went to Discovery Europe and satellite Spanish channel Hispavision. Biographical doc Leslie Neilsen: The Last Laugh has gone to cable and satellite channel Comedie France, while a package deal of 40 or more hours of wildlife is in process with tmc of Monaco. Three out of the five hours of Cinemas of the World were sold to Telepiu in Italy, and all five hours of the series have been sold to Canal Plus Horizons in Africa.

‘Documentaries are selling very well because there’s a lot of need for that because of all these new channels on cable and satellite,’ says Lizanne Rouillard of Montreal-based Filmoption.

Tween appears to be experiencing a surge in popularity, especially tween live action for which demand far outstripped supply.

‘We’ve just launched into live action with The Zack Files,’ says Decode’s Dominique Bazay. The dramedy (26 x 30) recorded strong interest. It was purchased by src in French Canada (Decode is in the process of making a French version). Decode also sold Our Hero, a live-action teen series (13 x 30) to France 2.

Oasis Pictures’ Stephen Murphy reports strong interest from France, the u.k., the Czech Republic, Sweden and Germany for Screech Owls (13 x 30, budgeted at $5 million), a live-action series about a hockey team that solves mysteries. The series, aimed at children aged nine to 12, is currently in production, with a delivery date of January 2001. Deals are awaiting a completed episode, expected in early November.

‘There seems to be a lot of interest from buyers in tween live action,’ says Murphy. ‘When we were showing it to people there was a lot of ‘Yes – do you have any more?’ ‘

Vancouver’s Sextant also profited from this trend, tying up a deal with Foxtel in Australia for 65 new episodes of Uh Oh!, a half-hour kids game show with a seven to 12 audience in mind.

At the CineGroupe stall, the children’s animation launch Sagwa The Chinese Siamese Cat, done in association with Sesame Workshop, was sold in its entirety to Italy’s MediaSet (80 x 11 for Europe; 40 x 30 for North America). Delivery dates are staggered between the end of August 2001 and the end of October 2001. The budget is us$13 million.

Montreal-based CineGroupe also signed German production company Animagix and French prodco Animakids as coproducers on Sinbad, a us$8-million feature film set for theatrical release. Production is scheduled to start on Jan. 1, 2001, with delivery set for September 2001.

Catalyst reports sales of Cooking For Love (56 x 30) to Grenada Breeze in the u.s., with Wegelius tv in Scandinavia buying format rights. Children’s live-action series You’ll Never Believe It (11 x 20-25) and It’s A Mystery (34 x 15 and 20) were sold to Thailand (pay channel ubc) and Singapore (Singapore Cablevision). Both channels bought all episodes of both series and negotiations for the series are continuing with a channel in the Philippines.

Cooking show Avventura was sold to cetv in China (26 x 30), with Latin America’s People and Arts channel interested in the companion show, Entrada. The Magic Adventures of Mumfie, an animated preschool series (39 x 30), was sold to the Philippines.

mows What Katy Did, Shadow Lake and Bye Bye Blues have been sold to pay channel Hallmark in various territories. What Katy Did and Bye Bye Blues have both been sold in Italy and Bye Bye Blues has been sold in Latin America, with a sale on Katy pending in that territory. All three mows have gone to Hallmark’s services in Australia, Asia, New Zealand and Spain, with sales still being discussed for the Middle East, Europe and Japan.

Thalidomide baby doc Extraodinary People has been sold to free-to-air Japan’s nhk and Australia’s Lifestyle channel took another 26 episodes of half-hour cooking show What’s For Dinner?.

aac reported an Australian sale of Yvon of the Yukon (13 x 30), an animated comedy series aimed at the eight to 12 audience.

Though almost all Canadian vendors seem to be in agreement that this was a good show, participants report less business being done at the show itself than in years past.

‘Major buyers are telling me they don’t have the authority [to commit to sales]. There are budgetary constraints,’ says Minds Eye’s Roxanna Humphreys.

Additionally, the size of the show – reporting its highest figures for stall holders for the mipcom just past – and the attendant speed with which business must now be done appears to be working against sales. Vendors who once screened entire shows for potential clients over a matter of an hour or more must now be content with 30-minute meetings that end with an agreement to mail a screener.

‘People aren’t taking their time like they used to. It’s because it’s a more corporate market,’ says Decode’s Bazay.

Another trend evident at the market was the proliferation of Internet broadcasters looking for product. However, while the feeling is that the Net will one day come into its own, online applications have a long way to go before they will be deemed to be an acceptable complement to tv sales.

The message for Internet buyers out for content – Canadian producers aren’t selling. Reasons cited include the lack of a business model, questions about delivery style, and pivotally, a hesitancy to sign over what amounts to worldwide rights.

Christopher Brough of Sextant spoke for many when he voiced uneasiness about selling off Internet rights. ‘There’s no business model, there’s no control of the territories to which the product goes. Until one can narrowcast, we don’t feel like giving product away. One day it will be a revenue stream, but right now it’s like an elephant in a shed with the light bulb out and six guys are trying to figure out what it is.’ *