MipTV 2022 Highlights Global Hot Spots in the Streaming Landscape

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorThe battlegrounds in the streaming wars are shifting fast, just as real-life battle lines are being dug out in Eastern Europe.Russia has drawn near-universal condemnation because of its unprovoked attack on its neighbor Ukraine, launching a war with the country.

The conflict has also rattled world markets and made investors nervous about geopolitical instability as the entertainment industry is banking more than ever before on the value of building platforms with global reach.

The trail blazed by Netflix as a streamer without borders means that the target market for global streaming giants is a staggering 700 million to 1 billion households worldwide, as estimated by MoffettNathanson Research. “We’ve got original content coming out from Turkey.

We have production in Russia, from Argentina, from Mexico, from Sweden, from Denmark,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO and chief content officer, told Wall Street analysts in late January during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We’ve got original content from all corners of the world, with 20 originals coming out of Korea this year.”The heightened demand for local-language content by the largest streamers in the hunt for bottom-line subscriber growth will be the dominant topic of conversation among content industry insiders set to gather in Cannes April 4-6 for the annual MIP TV conference and market.The rush of activity in markets across the U.K., Europe, Asia and Latin America has the potential to super-charge existing production infrastructures.