September 16 – 19, 2019 Hyatt Regency Kyiv, Ukraine
For the majority of TV, movie, production, distribution and other media business representatives the last week has passed, beyond a shadow of doubt, under the sign of KYIV MEDIA WEEK (KMW). Organized by Media Resources Management company, this unique media industry project, one and the only of a kind in the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe was held in Kyiv on September 13-16, 2011. The event gathered more than 800 participants from the CIS region, Eastern and Central Europe, Northern America and Asia. It was a distinctive range of events for top players of TV, movie, new media and other media businesses that gave opportunity to meet colleagues and network in formal and informal atmosphere (a number of special entertaining events were held), to tie up beneficial contracts and to learn about current trends of the international media business.
Ukrainian Content Market
In course of KMW the first in Ukraine international audiovisual content market Ukrainian Content Market (September 14-16) was organized by Media Resources Management company. The representatives of all key CIS content buyers – major TV channels from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus etc. have attended the Market.
Therefore among those to attend it were Russian TV channels CTC, TNT, Ren-TV, First Channel represented by Isym company; top Ukrainian broadcasters: Inter, STB, New channel, ICTV; leading Kazakhstan TV channels: First Channel Eurasia, KTK, 31st channel, NKT. But these were by far not all the representatives of these countries on the Market. Moreover, among the numerous buyers attending the Market there were also top channels from other countries of our region, like ONT (Belarus), TV3 (Lithuania), LNT (Latvia), Imedi (Georgia), Shant (Armenia), etc.
About 30 well known companies worked on the market with their own exhibition suites, among them A+E Networks (Great Britain), Cineflix (Great Britain), RWS (Russia), Telemundo Internacional (USA), WeiT Media (Russia), SevenOne International (Germany), Central Partnership (Russia), Zodiak Rights (Great Britain), Studio U7 (Russia), Intra Communications (Russia) and many others. Besides such a world known prodcos and distributors like Endemol (Great Britain), RAI (Italy), Small World IFT (USA), Banijay International (France), BBC Worlwide (Great Britain), Armoza Formats (Israel), 2WayTraffic (Netherlands), etc were acting on the market as sellers.
Taken all round, participants of the event (more than 60 companies-sellers and over 70 buyers from 24 countries of Europe, North America and Asia) were very satisfied with the results of their 3-day work at the Market, during which numerous acquisition and content coproduction deals were concluded. Though companies prefer not to reveal the details of the agreements they made (which is typical for all existing content markets), all the questioned sellers noted high activity of the buyers, while the broadcasters complimented wide choice of content for any taste and budget.
Digital Broadcasting in Ukraine
International forum Digital Broadcasting in Ukraine became an opening event of KYIV MEDIA WEEK on Tuesday, September 13th. Traditionally Independent Association of Broadcasters and Television Industry Committee organized the forum. Digital broadcasting in Ukraine - is the key place of discussion for professionals interested in Ukrainian DSO что то простите? and a start point to promote and develop the DTT in Ukraine. As contrasted with last years forums, this time besides the future plans and expectations, participants had opportunity to discuss realities of interactions between government, broadcasters and digital terrestrial multiplexes’ providers. The current situation inside this ‘love triangle’ is brightly described with the old saying - ‘the first fry is bound to be a flop’. Maybe there is a mistake in Ukrainian digital broadcasting ‘receipt’? How could it be fixed without affecting the final consumer – national viewership?
These questions were risen and actively discussed by the forum participants.
Five panel discussions, dedicated to different topics were planned in course of Digital Broadcasting in Ukraine forum. But practically it emerged that almost all the speakers were entirely in agreement with each other and generally were bothered about the same issues, so the discussion, as such, has proved to be unnecessary. Most of the speeches were dipped into the following burning subjects:
In light of the fact, that both the Counsil and Zeonbud company delagates refused to to participate in Digital Broadcasting in Ukraine forum, all the above mentioned questions were considered to be rhetorical.
Format Show
On September 14th in course of KYIV MEDIA WEEK another unique event – Format Show - was held. This one day conference was dedicated to the TV formats, their screening and presentation of the newest and the most popular formats by core international prodcos and distributors. For two straight years Format Show is being organized by Media Resources Management company. In course of Format Show participants had a great opportunity to listen to speeches from the leading experts in the sphere of TV formats from Europe, USA, Russia and other countries who talked on braking and the newest trends of formats business. Also the screening of the most popular and outstanding formats of TV shows from all around the world was held. The Format Show key point became the premier of 15 newborn TV formats, presented in Kyiv to international media community for the first time. Particularly, participants of the conference saw three debuts of the game formats from British company ITV, three new formats from German company SevenOne International and three more from British Zodiak Rights. Also American Small World IFT, British BBC Worldwide, Swedish Sparks Network, Israeli Armoza Formats, British Cineflix International and French Banijay Entertainment presented their TV-formats premieres to Format Show audience. Besides, in course of the conference a unique panel discussion ‘Scripted formats: adaptation , original production, market analytics, future trends’ was held, where production industry core experts (Timur Weinstein – WeiT Media (Russia), Victor Prykhodko – Pro-TV (Ukraine), Yuriy Sapronov – Russian World Studios, Tatyana Gnedash – Television and Radio Broadcasting company Ukraine) shared their experience and thoughts regarding problems and prospects of a high-rate local TV content development.
It must be said that Ukrainian media market players, that were present on Format Show, dropped a hint of a doubt concerning the relevant output referred to the ‘home-made’ formats penetration into the international markets, speaking in favor of production experience scarcity. Meanwhile Igor Storchak – director of FILM.UA Distribution - has endorsed his colleagues’ view that “as long as we adapt foreign formats - we study”, and developed his idea: “Formats adaptation leads to discovering of our own formats. The day, when Ukrainian formats will enter international market is very close.”
Television as a Business
The third day of KYIV MEDIA WEEK was dedicated to the Television as a Business conference, organized by Television Industry Committee. Representatives of the leading TV-stations, media experts and investors were talking about current content, finance issues, management and new media technologies.
One of the most burning topics, that ran through all the conference’s reports was ‘Television versus Internet’, devoted to these platforms interaction. How does the network affect the TV? Will it enter the competition with the world’s most popular media platform or will become the instrument of integration into the every single human life sphere? Nick North (Chief Marketing Officer at GfK Media Sector, Great Britain) gave a notice to the broadcasters, that there’s no worth taking the trouble. Even at the stage of its infancy, television was predicted to be fast declining – in year 1948 it was told: “TV is circling the drain. It’s self-defeating”. And even five years ago there was a statement that “Internet instantly kills the TV”. But still by now television keeps strong positions. As yet Internet is helpless against TV popularity: e.g. the British viewers spend their time in front of TV 35 times as much as in beloved of all social networks.
Besides, in course of the Television as a Business conference participants were excited to listen to the speech of a special guest - world known iconic Polish film director and producer Krzysztof Zanussi.
Film Business in Ukraine
On September 16th for the fourth time in Ukraine the annual International Сonference “Film Business in Ukraine: challenges, features, opportunities” was held. Organized by Media Resources Management company, the one-day conference was dedicated to the burning problems of Ukrainian and international film industry. Core Ukrainian, Russian, Belorussian and European experts put the emphasis on the raising funds and film production investments.
Each of the Film Business in Ukraine speakers shared his experience of successful projects implementation and efficient finance system developing within the company or the country, as well as at the international co-operation level. Another hot topics of the conference were: the state support of film industry, problems and perspectives of Ukrainian movie theaters business, the importance of marketing component in the pre-release film project promotion.
Illia Neretin, General Producer of Raccoon Cinema (Russia), was the first to speak at the conference’s “Film Finance and Investments” panel discussion, and made a retrospective journey into the history of the Soviet film industry, paying serious consideration to the state role in the art and business accommodation within the Russian film industry. Principals and mechanisms of the French cinema investing was described by Joël Chapron - Central and Eastern European manager for the promotion of French cinema abroad, UNIFRANCE. Russian and Ukrainian lawers - Konnov & Sozanovsky and MGAP representatives, having huge practical experience in film industry investing, told about investment schemes that do work. Managing Director, Completion Guarantor at International Film Guarantors Ltd. Luke Randolph in course of the conference gave a master class on the international film finance models, creation & measures of the project value, finance versus investment, different types of finance, risk management, return on investment, and how does a producer deal with all this.
Besides film industry investing issues, the conference’s participants had a great opportunity to discuss the problems of cinema promotion, as well as film distribution and cinema theaters prospectives in Ukraine. The results of film distribution market in Ukraine for the first three quarters of 2011 was highlighted by Artem Vakalyuk, Editor-in-Chief of Content Report and Media Business Reports publications, Media Resources Management (Ukraine). Victoria Gorenshtein, Chairman of the Board of Cinema Center cinema chain (the owner of the The Cinema City chain, Ukraine), delivered a speech about problems and perspectives of Ukrainian movie theaters business. Expanding their cinema theatres chain within the biggest Ukrainian cities, the Cinema Center company has faced such a problems like lack of investments, repertoire poverty, accrescent expenses of the cinema, vital need of cinema halls modernization and digital technologies implementation, audience preferences tracking as well as the theatres location. A very active discussion was caused by the report of Anton Pugach – the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Multiplex-Holding (Ukraine). He has offered the opinion, that state support and financing of the film production is not at all a guarantee of its success in Ukraine and moreover – abroad. Also Georgi Malkov, General Producer Enjoy movies (Russia) has shared his experience of development and implementation of his film project "Pregnant -man", released in early September.
In summary…
So we can easily state that KYIV MEDIA WEEK is really unique project for media market one and the only of a kind in the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. This range of events did go down the storm! Only during four days our media-week was visited upward of a thousand people – participants, speakers, listeners, buyers and sellers, mass media and government authorities. We bid our adieu and looking forward to meeting you again next year in September on KYIV MEDIA WEEK-2012!
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