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It's not the place where people go to strike lots of agreements, both for finished tape and for shows that they're selling off paper. It's much more of a networking opportunity, a chance to refresh relationships and catch up with people that your friends with in the industry. It's somewhat of a launchpad as well, isn't it, for these deals sometimes? As you say, these conversations are going on throughout the year and MIPCOM is that launchpad and we've been seeing over recent years bigger and bigger talent coming to MIPCOM to launch their new big drama series, for example, or unscripted projects.
So we're just seeing it evolve, aren't we? Absolutely. I mean, one of the things I spoke to 10 distribution chiefs over the last couple of weeks, just to get a sense of where they're at. And Louise Pederson, the chief executive at All3Media International, she said, one of the things she's going to miss most is generating heat around shows.
She said that things can really steamroll at a market. They can pick up momentum quite quickly through word of mouth. When I say word of mouth, genuine word of mouth, people talking to each other while they're living around the closet. That element of the market has just not been there.
And the other thing I'd say about that is, this is something that a couple of other people said to me. It's not the opportunity to kind of peek over other people's fences. You can't go to the market and just have a look at what your competitors are up to. And I think that is a huge part of what makes these festivals so vibrant and fun and what has been lacking from a virtual festival.
You can't do those things in the same way. That's really interesting, I hadn't considered that. I mean, certainly I'd considered the ability to instigate or fan the flames of a bidding war around a really particular hot property. I mean, I've certainly seen that over the years.
And that's when a market can really come into its own. That real sort of human interaction and buzz that you can create around a property. But I hadn't considered a lot of these big distribution companies looking at what the competition is doing and perhaps looking at adapting that into their own strategy. Definitely.
It clearly goes on. I mean, it's part of the fun of a market isn't it? You hear what your rifles are up to, you collect gossip and market intelligence. And the other thing, one of the other interesting things is that studios increasingly use Bitcoin and other similar markets as an opportunity to refresh their internal communication and say they gather, they come together as colleagues and have brains building sessions or they go out and they entertain each other.
They are chances to catch up with colleagues that you may not see all year round. And that has been absent as well. Well, that's an interesting aspect and something that we've all missed a little bit. How about deals that you've noticed over the last few days, Jake?
I gather there's HBO Mac. I've been snapping up a few shows. That's right. It's generally been fairly slim pickings in terms of really sort of eye-catching deals.
But the one thing that's become quite noticeable in the last few days is that HBO Macs has become really aggressive in the international market. We're talking today on Wednesday and they've announced that adult material, which is a Channel 4 drama porn star series starring Hailey Squires. That's been picked up by HBO Max from Banerjae, Banerjae writes. And that's a show that has generated quite a bit of buzz over here in the UK.
And I'm sure will perform well for HBO Max. Another big buzzy show here in the UK, I Hate Susie, which was the phone hacking drama from Succession's Lucy Preble and Stars Biddy Piper, who also co-created it. That has also been picked up by HBO Max. So those are two pretty chunky, exciting UK dramas that come in and swooped for.
Another series again announced that they were series called Possessions from Studio Canal, which is a French Israeli series in which a woman is charged with murder. The murder of her husband on the night of their wedding. And then another big Israel-led project called Value of Tears, which depicts the 1973 young Kapoor War through the eyes of young combatants and soldiers. Isn't that the most expensive Israeli TV project ever?
That's right. Yeah. And I guess that kind of underlines the ambition of what HBO Max wants. And that's no surprise when they're competing with the likes of Netflix and Amazon in a market, which is becoming so intensely competitive.
And then the other thing, I mean, those are all dramas, but they are close to announcing a deal with Banerjee rights for the Channel 4 show, The Bridge, which is a reality competition series, which launched in the UK over the weekend, which contestants build a bridge to an island. But they're going to come on board as a co-production on that. So, and I mean, Jen Kim, who's the International Originals Chief over HBO, actually kind of hinted at some of this at the Edinburgh Television Festival. So she's really made good on her promise.
This is slightly unrelated, but there is a connection. We saw a lot of tabloid news in the UK, tabloids in particular, around Lily James and Dominic West, who were photographed in an embrace in Paris. And we certainly saw a lot of coverage around the making up in front of the press of Dominic West and his wife. But there's a project as well linked to this, isn't that?
Yeah, it's been a fun distraction for the tabloids over the last few days. But behind it all sits a show called The Pursuit of Love, which is made by Open Book and Moonage Pictures. It's one of the buzzier shows of the can market this year. It's an adaptation of Nancy Mitford's classic novel, and is being made for the BBC and Amazon.
From the Sounds of It, it sounds really fun. I've seen a little bit, they showed a little bit during a BBC studio session on the sitcom online plus platform. Emmy Mortimer, who is adapting the novel and directing the show, talked about how it's going to be inspired by Sophia Coppola's films, particularly Marie Antoinette, which is clearly broke some rules of traditional period dramas, things like Marie Antoinette running down a hallway in her converse. There's definitely some rule breaking, some subverting of the genre going on, and I think we'll probably see some of that in the pursuit of love as well.
But during this session, it was interesting to see that James was looking on longingly and gazing at Dominic West. It's something I actually noticed before the stories about their sort of their Trist came out in the press. It was quite noticeable, funnily enough. But in the drama, he plays her dad.
So that's an unusual twist. Want to get ahead in digital first content? The drop is a go-to newsletter for industry professionals delivering insider news, trends and insights straight to your involves. Mavigate the fast-changing landscape of digital first production, distribution and monetization.
Sign up now for free at dropmedia.co.uk And stay informed with the drop. It certainly is. That's a very buzzy show in many ways. I've also seen that you've highlighted a new film about a water shortage crisis being shot by Fremantle.
Yeah, I mean, so it was shot, so Fremantle are distributing around the world. And it was actually made by Keo Films and a company called OOS Pictures. But it's an unusual one. It's been filmed over a period of three years.
There's a guy called David Wallastin who has personally financed the shoot. And he is one of the earliest executives of the Chinese tech giant Tencent. He's got a very grand job title. He's called Chief Exploration Officer.
Quite well, that means I'm not sure. But it sounds great. It's kind of his brainchild. He was a child.
He developed a real fascination with the water shortage crisis and wanted to unbury dry information from white papers in a quite chastening and dramatic film. And that's what they hope to do with Day Zero. And they've got a really good director involved, Gugle Kevin Sim, who has won Emmys in the past. And it was clearly when I spoke to him, I was really passionate about the project.
And they've got Chibotel, each of all involved as well as the generation. That one sends the timing for that as well. When we're all thinking about sustainability is also an interesting one. So we're looking forward to seeing how that one develops.
And you've also got the scoops on a couple of big brand stories in TV this week. Yeah, so away from the market. I think some of the biggest stories actually have been away from Mikon, which is unfortunate for Mikon, but sometimes the way it goes. It's clear that Coronavirus is having a big impact on production.
I mean, we know that obviously we've gone through a period where production has been shut down for many months. And now we're in a period where a lot of shows are back up and running, but are having to deal with the consequences of even just small numbers of crew and cast testing positive for the disease. And the inevitability of that is that they have to pause and apply the breaks for a period of time. And this has impacted Brinscott-Tannant this week.
So Deadline broke the story yesterday about the fact that the Christmas special had to be shut down. The eve of filming commencing. There are three crew members tested positive for Coronavirus. And sources tell me that it's now very unlikely that that show is going to be made.
And it probably won't be until next year if they do decide to remount it, they'll do it again next year perhaps. And we've seen it again today on a show with Little Mix, which Little Mixer are making for BBC One. It's called Little Mixer Search. And again, there has been a small number of positive tests.
And they are postponing this Saturday's episode and not returning until the weekend after. And it just gives you a sense of the balls that producers are having to juggle. I mean, it's a very complicated jigsaw that they're having to work. And just a handful of cases can completely derail a production.
And the other big story that we've been covering is the fact that Curinite Lee had to pull out of a very glossy ambitious Apple period drama called The Essex Servant. And I mean, she had literally been announced in the lead role only a few weeks ago, but has decided to pull out because she doesn't think that she can manage her child care because of the second wave of coronavirus in the UK. She gave the producers notice they had to halt pre-production. They were planning to get cameras rolling at the end of November, but the show has gone completely on hiatus now and won't be returning probably until next year with a newly cast member.
Well, I mean, as you say, it really highlights the challenges that particularly drama producers are facing now when they're going into pre-production and making all these new arrangements for a COVID-safe production. And then right at the final hurdle, almost, when they're about to actually start filming, rolling is to get those positive tests. It must be absolutely shattering for many people. So I thought let's go out to them and many other producers out there who are also making shows without insurance because some of these territories we talked about at the other day in Spain, for example, there's no real insurance scheme in place and there's a lot of production still happening there on big budget productions.
We wish them all the best and it's obviously a very difficult time to navigate through making shows at the moment. Fantastic. Jake, thank you so much for coming on the show this week. It was fascinating to hear some of those really wide-ranging stories and giving us a last look at MIPCOM before we look ahead and hopefully to MIP TV coming together as a physical market.
You never know. Hopefully. We'll keep all our fingers crossed. Thank you again for coming on and I'll speak to you soon.
Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. So to wrap up our final MIPCOM special episode, I thought it might be appropriate just to think for a moment about the impact that MIPCOM and various other events not happening has on a conference town such as Cannes. And there are lots of businesses in the city that rely on trade from international travellers.
A one that might be particularly familiar to many MIPCOM and MIP TV attendees is Brown Sugar, the guest repub that's situated on the Rue de Férre Pradignac, I hope I've got that pronunciation, right? The street just behind the grand hotel. And I've certainly spent many a happy and late evening there after dinner with friends and colleagues over the years. It has to be the best post dinner bar in camp.
And I'm delighted to be joined by the owner of Brown Sugar, Gary Gregg. Gary, how are you doing? I'm fine. Thank you.
I'm fine. And thanks for inviting me onto the show. No, it's great to have you on. We'd all love to be in Cannes right now.
I'm certainly missing it. Lots of my colleagues are as well. Tell us about the current restrictions that we're in placing Cannes right now. I think the restrictions we have is quite similar to yourselves in the UK.
We're probably about two weeks ahead of you in terms of different restrictions being implemented. Right now the bars have to close at 10 o'clock right over here and the bars restaurants have to close at 1230. So we fall into the bar restaurant category. So thankfully we're still open until 1230.
It's not challenging though because as you know, and as you just said yourself, we are a late night bar. So the majority of our business is done between let's say 11 o'clock in the evening until 2 30 in the morning. So we're close to where we would normally be doing good to the sense of that right. And obviously this has been the case or some form of restrictions have been in place for quite a few months now, right?
And obviously the lack of conferences that come into Cannes has been a major effect on your business. Can you take us through that? How COVID's affected your businesses yet? Yeah, absolutely.
Let's take it from the beginning. I'm taking it from the beginning of 2020. We decided to close this year in January, February simply because we had so many bookings and privatizations during the various congresses. We felt it was the one moment we had to sort of take a break.
That wasn't a very smart choice. So we reopened the bar on the 1st of March and by the 15th of March, we went into lockdown for a period of 10 weeks. 15th of March, normally the first congress will be starting which will be mid- then which is a real estate congress. I don't be familiar with that one.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But that's actually in Monday to terms, it's our biggest week and not just for us but for many bars and restaurants. So after a quiet winter, that sort of kicks off your season and gives businesses the liquidity to push forward.
So it's a very, very difficult situation for everybody because they didn't get that initial injection at the beginning of the season that we would normally have. Then we come into April and of course, no Mittini as you know, no Cannes Film Festival this year, no Cannes Lions, the Advertising Festival which is probably our second or first actually biggest week. And yeah, so from the 15th of March to the second of June, we were closed totally. Unfortunately, we could open from the second of June and trade normally throughout the summer season.
Then the restrictions with the early closing started from around. Trying to remember now probably around the first week of September. So at least on the positive side we had the summer. Are there any business bailout packages available to businesses such as yours in France?
Well, there is but the bailout packages, you know, at the end of the day, you do have to you have to pay the money back. You need to remember this because we had to close, of course, we fell everybody and took advantage of the Furlough scheme. But we made the decision not to go for any grounds or any loans which we would have to look to pay back at a later date. So we decided to try to manage, try to manage this.
And how about the wider business community in Cannes? I mean, when we come back to Cannes, I'm saying we in terms of the TV industry, when hopefully we're there at Mitt TV or maybe Mitt Com next October, will it be the same? Will it look the same or do we expect a number of businesses not to be there? How's the wider business community go?
I think it's a little bit too early to say. I don't see bars and restaurants going bankrupt and closing down today. I see many of them have decided to close for the winter, which is probably a smart idea because they can take advantage of the Furlough and they just have to worry about covering their end costs. So I can understand why some businesses have strategically decided to close their business.
But you know, you have a town with, according to TripAdvisor, 700 restaurants and we have a population of 70,000. Something's got to give, something is going to happen. Something is going to happen most definitely. Presumably, there just isn't the off-season trade, there isn't a local trade to sustain all these businesses through the winter months or during the times when conferences can't come to Cannes.
Absolutely, we don't have a circular economy. We can thrive from tourism and if it thrives from the international community in which comes to Cannes. So we can't self-support ourselves. Maybe we're a little bit fortunate at Brown Shorter that we have a relatively large expatriate community who live down here, especially people working on the super-oft and in the auteing industry.
So we do have, we do have our locals but this month, just to give you an idea, we're probably looking at about a 70% decrease in sales. Fortunately, we actually increased ourselves in the summer in June, July, August, so that compares last year. But on the back of being basically close to five months before that, it's tough. Listen, we're all really hoping that you can make it through the quiet times and once we get back to Cannes, which is hopefully sooner rather than later, then I'm sure there's going to be a big party when we all can come back together again as a community and ensure being together.
Absolutely. Brown Shorter is certainly going to be the place that's going to be number one on the list for today's visiting after dinner. That's nice to say, just a painted quite complete picture. If I can paint quite a positive picture for a moment, what's been nice during the lockdown and during the last few months is the amount of customers and friends from around the world who I've been in contact with from Australia, America, the UK, Denmark and I know the bar means a lot so many people.
We've got a strategy, we expect it to be very difficult for the next few months, but we certainly expect to be here in the future and we certainly expect things to pick up again in the future. Well, that's reassuring to know. Gary, best of luck with everything. Have a good winter.
Thank you very much. We can't wait to see you again when the sun starts shining in 2021. I'm sure we'll be here just in a good look at business as well. It's nice to have a chat.
It really is. It means a lot. Thank you. Thanks so much.
Well, that's all for our third and final mid-con special show. Thanks for my guests for coming on these bonus shows and if you haven't had enough of me already this week, our regular telecast is out tomorrow and my guests are Richard Tulk Harts, Co-CEO of Buccaneer Media and David Michelle, Co-Founder of Federation Entertainment and Founder and President of Cottonwood Media. Plus, TV Eyes Richard Middleton joins me for a new feature called Movers and Shakers and K7 Media's Gursley says looks at different COVID-safe approaches to filming studio shows at the moment, including some tweaks to some of the best known TV formats. Until then, stay safe.