NFB/interactive and MIPTV

It’s been a big week for us at MIPTV in Cannes, France, and while we’ve been releasing information in bits and pieces, I thought I’d take a moment to group all the news in one place.

What is MIPTV?

MIPTV (and likewise MIPCOM) is an industry event that takes place in Cannes. It’s the world’s largest entertainment content market. Around this time every year, people from all over the globe gather to get “its first taste of the newest programmes, freshest formats and latest innovations for TV, Internet, Mobile and all Video-rich platforms.” The market involves 107 countries and 4,000 buyers.

Industry folk attend MIP to showcase/pitch their new slates, negotiate deals and take advantage of the immense buying power.

What’s the NFB doing at MIPTV?

This year, we’re showcasing 14 interactive projects that we want to license out to third parties.We’re looking at 2 different models: content licensing (acquiring the project as is) and format licensing (we’ll tailor the media to the broadcasters needs).

Interactive web docs are relatively new on the landscape, and while many are trying to figure it out, we’ve already got some pretty awesome projects under our belt: Highrise/Out My Window, The Test Tube with David Suzuki and Welcome to Pine Point, among others. Unlike our films, these projects were developed strictly for the web.

Why would someone pay for these projects when they’re already available for free online?

Excellent question.

Yes, its true that anyone can come to our site and experience any one of our interactive projects at no cost. So why would someone pay for something we’re giving away for free? Gerry Flahive, producer on Highrise, suggests that people are licensing the content to “distinguish themselves in a cluttered digital space.”

As Flahive puts it, “In Australia, you won’t Google the NFB, but you’re looking at the SBS Australia website.” (SBS has licensed Highrise/Out My Window.)

So in much the same way traditional content gets licensed, we’re licensing our web content.

So? How’d it work out?

Tom Perlmutter, Christina Rogers and Joël Pomerleau with the Digital Emmy for Highrise/Out My Window

So far, MIPTV has been good to us. We’ve negotiated deals with broadcasters like SBS Australia, planetgreen.com and treehugger.com. In addition, we just won a Digital Emmy for Highrise/Out My Window, the 360° web doc about seeing the world through people’s highrise windows.

This is an interesting new business model for us. Watch this space for news on how it develops.

For more information on this subject read: