MUMBAI: We all know that content is king. The reason: it brings in the moolah whenever it is consumed. And to help and understand India?s content creators and distributors and to increase their business prospects globally, Paris-based Reed Midem has organised a three-city road show in coordination with indiantelevision.com.

Reed Midem is the company behind the world?s most successful audiovisual content markets such as MipTV, MipCom and Midem, which are represented in India by indiantelevision.com CEO Anil Wanvari.

To be organised in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, the road show consists of a series of interactive round table/seminars/ interactions in each of the three cities. Among the invitees figure local television and film content producers, broadcasters, animation and media tech companies. The theme of the seminars is: ?Can Indian content leave its stamp on the world?? .

?We believe it can,? says Reed Midem director market development Ted Baracos, who is flying down from Paris especially for the road shows. ?India?s content strengths have been seen in its Bollywood films and outsourcing of animation to it by many global companies. MipCom and MipTV offer very strong platforms where this potential can be exploited further because we have buyers/co-producers from more than 100 countries consistently looking to source content.?

Adds Reed Midem Asia sales manager Paul Barbaro: ?We have seen the success that several Asian countries have achieved thanks to MipCom and MipTV and would like even India?s content makers to replicate and surpass that. Whether it is Singapore or China or Korea ? each of these nations have used MipCom, MipTV as a springboard to growing their international co-production and syndication sales.?"

Wanvari believes that the time is ripening for India?s content creation and distribution industry to build partnerships, and begin understanding the pulse of audiences in other countries in order to reap more benefits from their content.

?Digitisation of India?s cable TV industry is set to unlock humungous amounts of subscription revenues for broadcaster which was bleeding out of the system,? he says. ?A large part of that money is likely go into content creation ? higher budget shows, with an international feel and look which is more than likely to find custom internationally. Singapore produced a show called the Kitchen Musical which has found buyers worldwide - including in India - and has build the island nation?s profile. Indian companies could also invest in understanding the syndication market internationally and building their global buyer network through must-attend markets such as MipTV and MipCom.?

Given below is the itinerary of Reed Midem?s ?Can Indian content leave its stamp on the world?? road show:

22 July 2013 
Hotel Hans, 15 Barakhamba Road,
New Delhi

25 July 2013 
Taj Banjara, Banjara Hills
Hyderabad

27 July 2013 
Raheja Classique Club
Andheri West
Mumbai

The road show series is an invitation only event in each of the three cities. But if you would like to know how you can monetise and are interested in being in any of the three cities, please send an email to [email protected] or [email protected].

MUMBAI: Everyone and everybody that indiantelevision.com journalists got in touch with today to get an update on the advertisers vs broadcasters faceoff had one word to say: "Nothing."

So we decided to label it as the day of nothing.

But after probing deeper, we got to know that both sides, the AAAI and ISA, and broadcasters have as collectives individually agreed upon the tradeoffs each one is willing partake of. And at a very high level (read a select group of stakeholders), representatives of all sides have broadly reached an agreement too. "Some of the the AAAI, ISA and the broadcaster members have agreed on certain points. However not everybody has not agreed. Now unless, they all buy into this proposed agreement, the agreement is not really an agreement," says a media observer close to the developments.

Did any official conversations take place between them today? "None really," says a really very senior advertising professional. ?Talks happened but on an informal level. We are all friends, after all."

Observers, going by historical precedent, expect some announcement to come tomorrow late Friday evening. "Over the past two months, major announcements have been made on weekends. It was last weekend when broadcasters announced that they were moving to monthly ratings, before that the unsubscribing announcements happened on Friday and Saturday. There is a pattern to this," says one of them. "It would be opportune for them to announce that they have all reached common ground."

Reports are that the IBF board is meeting tomorrow, but sources close to the IBF say that the meeting is not related to the monthly ratings and the proposals made by advertisers and agencies. Whether this source is bluffing or not will only become clearer by late tomorrow evening.