Japan will be the country of honor of this year’s edition of MipTv/ Featuring Milia, to be held in Cannes from 7th “” 11th April, with the expected participation of over 13 thousand professionals.
“Focus on Japan” will celebrate the best that the second biggest TV market in the world has to offer, particularly with regard to Japanese animation and format exports.
On 7th April, during “Green Day”, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK will receive the “Green World Award”, a tribute to the network’s ongoing commitment to raising public awareness about environmental issues.
Green TV will be one of the market’s hot topics, the subject of a series of debates and events focusing on the media’s role in the fight against global warming. 
British environmentalist David de Rothschild will be presenting his environmental programs for children, “Nick’s Big Green Thing”, realized in collaboration with kids’ TV channel Nickelodeon UK.
Kevin Wall, the founder and managing director of Live Earth and Control Room, the top producer and distributor of international live music events, will talk about the unprecedented media architecture that made it possible for over two billion people to experience the Live Earth concerts in July 2007.
And as part of the debate “TV production: how to make it green?”, French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, producer of the documentary series “Vu du ciel” (Earth from above), will talk about the need to make these programs in a more environmentally friendly way, suggesting some solutions.
The theme of this year’s conference program is “Audience on the Move”, examining the latest international trends in terms of programming, advertising, online distribution, telco-media convergence, social networks and mobile media.
The conferences will include “Sex, Lies and Online TV” where Jason Kilar (managing director of Hulu), will discuss the potential of new online distribution channels, “Beyond Aggregation: Blended Distribution, Audience Networks & Monetization”, during which Jeremy Allaire (Chairman of Brightcove) will illustrate some examples of companies that use blended distribution strategies, and “Inventing a new Media TV Experience”, in which the managing director of France Telecom, Didier Lombard, will discuss the involvement of companies in the audiovisual sector through the “TV Everywhere” service.
There has been a strong growth in the number of advertising agencies and global brands attending (including Dove, Nike, American Express, Fanta, Ford, BP and Kodak) with regard to the conferences as well as the exhibition areas and this, says Paul Johnson, director of Reed Midem’s Television Division, “reflects their sincere desire to join the entertainment content production and distribution players “” at a development stage “” as strategic partners.”
In fact the “Advertising & Media Day” will be focusing precisely on the convergence between brands, advertising agencies and content producers/distributors, starting with a talk by Rory Sutherland, vice president of the Ogilvy Group, about the potential of mobile media to engage consumers with brands through advertising and content.
ITALIANS AT THE MARKET
Once again this year, the ICE “” Italian Foreign Trade Commission, ANICA and APT, will be organizing an ITALY pavilion at MIP TV, occupying a total covered area of around 200 sq. meters and 40 sq. meters of terrace in the Riviera area (R36.17). The exhibition area will contain 11 companies with individual stands, the Rome Fiction Fest desk and 45 companies attending under the same umbrella. In order to publicize the Italian presence at MIP TV, a catalogue of the companies in the ITALY pavilion will be printed and placed in the folders provided to everyone registering for the event. There will also be a page of advertising in the catalogue. Some companies will be attending MIP with their own stand, outside the ITALY Pavilion. These include: Rai Trade (R30.03), Rainbow (R33.01), Mondo Tv (B1.02), Ripley’s Film (06.14) and RTI Mediaset (R32.07).
