Walking the aisles at the MIP-TV trade show in Cannes last week, you could get the impression that the Internet business does not exist. Web market sites for program sales and acquisition. But those vendors disappeared as quickly as they blossomed, although a hearty handful of vendors have persevered with the message that the TV world will soon or eventually be different because of the Internet s capabilities. Indeed, the MIP conference organizers continued to dedicate a five-session track of seminars to explore the Internet impact. Europe is still ahead of the United States as the world s most fertile area for ITV deployment.
Mergers seem to work.
The example at hand was Atom Films and Shockwave, which have joined into AtomShockwave, a streaming distributor that, according to Mikael Shields, managing director for Europe, will turn a profit in the fourth quarter of this year. The lack of standards continues to frustrate programmers who don t want to create interactive material for three or four expensive platforms. Amidst these concerns and outlooks, the MIP-TV event also underscored the current turmoil in creating usable applications for Web commerce. Several independent ventures that were created to help programmers and producers match their timeslots and programs have disappeared. Even MIP s own MIP Interactive site has been relaunched, although the parent company is not disclosing how many transactions actually move through the system.