As the sun sets and the beautiful people sup cocktails in Cannes on the conference’s closing night, what was the mood at this year’s Mip TV market? After years of defensiveness, producers are this year much keener to proactively seek online distributors, as I was told by Dailymotion UK creative director Digby Lewis, who said negotiations are much easier nowadays… There’s no shortage of new such channels on offer – all manner of video sites was here in France, desperately pitching for rights to new series. But TV makers are still reluctant to do exclusive deals, with the advice from the conference stage saying: cover the bases and deal with all the video sites (and YouTube all but begging for channel partnerships)…
For, as much as social sites and video services claim to be poles apart from each other (Bebo EU MD Kate Burns took pains to distance her site from Facebook), the truth is that the differences can sometimes be wafer thin (MySpace’s description of its audience sounded much the same as Bebo’s). And, as much as online players are beginning to commission their own TV in lieu of exclusive third-party content, the quality on offer isn’t going to give network execs nightmares any time soon… Babelgum content director Mark Cranwell told me he’s using his platform’s