Series Stars... - Festival de télévision de Monte-Carlo

Enter: TV Xchanges
Justin Bodle,
CEO and
Chairman
of Power
Aviva Silver,
Head of
Unit - MEDIA
Programme
and Media
Literacy,
European
Commission
Charles Floyd
Johnson,
Executive
Producer, NCIS
In 2009, the Monte Carlo TV Festival introduced the TV
Xchanges Programme in order to offer visiting film and TV
executives a platform where ideas about the most important
and relevant topics of the day can be shared and exchanged.
Silver Lining For Fiction
Wednesday afternoon’s TV Xchanges round table discussion
about Fiction Funding features Aviva Silver, Head of Unit - MEDIA
Programme and Media Literacy, European Commission: “Currently
around €12 million or 10% of our yearly budget goes to fiction, but
that may well change as we are currently examining the impact on
the sector of the multimedia revolution, and we may well end-up
shifting the focus of funding towards drama,” she says.
The MEDIA Programme currently partly funds 1500-2000 audiovisual
projects per year through some 25 calls for proposals: “There is
more interesting news for fiction producers in that the MEDIA
International programme, which was only for cinema productions,
is being replaced by MEDIA Mundus starting next year. The €15
million is also available to TV broadcasters as well as producers,”
Silver says. “The aim of the programme is to encourage international
cultural diversity through greater co-operation on audiovisual
projects.”
The rapidly changing nature of the TV industry is triggering new
research at MEDIA: “We are certainly going to be looking at TV and
its place in the audiovisual scene,” Silver says. “There have been a
lot of changes and it’s not easy to see where it’s going, but it’s clear
that the audience wants to be more involved. The epoch of the
passive spectator is over.”
While it might seem that documentaries are growing in popularity,
there is a fundamental commercial difference between that genre
and fiction: “Yes documentaries are popular but not as much as one
might imagine,” she says. “And then there is the problem that they
lack a secondary market, which is not the case with fiction.” GS
New Business Models
For A Brave New Digital
World
In the opening debate of the TV Xchanges
programme today ay 9.30 in the Salle Van
Dongen, Justin Bodle, CEO and Chairman of
UK production house Power, Christian Charret,
President, Geteve, Martin Moszcowicz,
Member of the Board at Constantin Film,
Takis Candilis, SVP Audiovisual Production,
Lagadere and Carlo Bixio, President,
Publispei, will be discussing New Business
Models For TV Drama Production.
“We need to look beyond the business
models of today. We are looking at returning
full circle to the syndication business of old in
the US. I am fed up with Television being the
poor sister to a film industry that production
keeps in work, every day, in its absence,
Bodle says.”
Following that, in his keynote speech today at
11.30 in the Salle Van Dongen, Charles Floyd
Johnson, Executive Producer, NCIS, will be
discussing the nature of the ever-changing
television landscape. “I’ll be talking about
the high definition and digital revolutions, the
importance of social media, the relevance of
new technologies and also introducing some
ideas about new business models,” he says. GS
28