This Monday marked the start of a new edition of Mipcom in Cannes, which had a busy first day in terms of activities and attendance.

*By Gonzalo Larrea and Rodrigo Ros, from Cannes, France.

After a somewhat disappointing Miptv -which will be reinvented for next year-, Mipcom had the additional challenge this year of proving it was still a must-attend market.

And judging by its first day, it delivered.

Because day one of Mipcom 2019 was marked by an increase in attendance, something clearly noticeable given the long lines of people waiting to enter the venue and the vibrant agenda of activities held all throughout the Palais and its surroundings.

According to the organization, over 13,500 attendees are expected for this year, coming from 111 countries, and including 4,700 buyers, all of whom join the 1500 that attended MipJunior.

“It’s the largest concentration of buyers for any event of this kind,” said Laurine Garaude, Director of TV at Reed Midem.

Announcements from Day One

In terms of announcements, Inter Medya sold two new Turkish dramas in Spain: Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters to Atresmedia for Nova and Hayat to Mediaset for Divinity.

In addition, Atresmedia announced the sale of Presunto Culpable to MBC Group for MENA and its division, Atresmedia Studios, announced an alliance with UK’s ITV for the format Trust Me I’m A Six-Year Old.

According to the announcement, the Atresmedia Studios and Possessed teams worked jointly in creating this new project, which puts celebrities through four rounds of competition, guided only by noisy kids.

Meanwhile, Kanal D confirmed to ttvnews that it will adapt a Latin American telenovela in Turkey. While no titles were announced, the deal is important, bearing in mind that Turkey hasn’t adapted Latin American formats in some time.

In terms of screenings, Latin America and Spain were the stars of this first day. On the one hand, Movistar+ presented the second season of The Plague, which came back “more entertaining” than before, according to its showrunner.

“I knew the second season had to go down a different path. We had already marked the way in the first one and this one had to be a lot more entertaining, more playful, with more action,” Rafael Cobos, showrunner, said to ttvnews.

And on the other hand, Red Arrow Studios International presented the Chilean-German coproduction, Dignidad, which will air in Chile on Mega and in Germany on Joyn.

It’s coproduced by Chile’s InvercineWood and Germany’s Story House, distributed internationally by Red Arrow.

“Dignidad is an eight-episode series that we had to tell with Chileans and Germans. It’s the story of Paul Shaffer and the cult he founded and kept for over 40 years. Very dark things happened under the watch of the Chilean and German governments, and we tell that story as an action series,” said Maria Elena Wood, creator and executive producer, from InvercineWood.

The event also hosted The Wit’s Fresh TV Formats conference, which featured Spanish format Love comes where least expected, by Fremantle and Cuatro.

The day ended with the news of Spanish producer Veranda being acquired by French group Lagardere Studios.