MIPCOM Day Two Wrap Up: World With Women, Anthony E. Zuiker, BBC Studios and more

World With Women! is a campaign to highlight the fact that women are too often absent from the rooms where major decisions are made. It’s inspired by a 1975 strike by women in Iceland, which sparked changes that have made the country the most gender-equal in the world. Today the campaign reached MIPCOM and the steps of the Grand Palais. You can find out more about its aims here.

Today also saw CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker delivering a MIP Headliner keynote to unveil Cinemalistics, his new AI-powered true-crime platform that will allow audiences to follow major crime stories as they unfold – through cinematic reconstructions, documentary reporting and verified source materials.

“The film and documentary is no longer something you watch after the story is over, it becomes something you live while the story is still being written,” he said.

Zuiker sees Cinemalistics’ future as being bigger than just a true-crime property, describing it as an operating system for understanding complex stories – whether they are breaking news, politics, culture, history or any other area where the technology can play a positive role.

The big names continued with Surane Jones, who is at MIPCOM as part of the push for the third season of Doctor Foster, from BBC Studios. The first series saw her character Gemma plotting a masterful revenge on her cheating husband. Season three sees her healthy, happy and preparing for remarriage… but the shadows from her past are reemerging.

Speaking to MIPCOM Daily News, Jones said that she instinctively said yes when asked if she was interested in returning to the role for a new season.

“I think it's because of my own son. So I have a 10-year-old — who was then an eight-year-old. And just in that moment, I felt very connected to what the characters did to their child. And so maybe I needed the space as an actor and someone who now had more maternal experience,” she said. “Something made me want to do it at that exact moment.”

“The third season is about how Gemma's story is going to end. And we all wanted to find out. So I think it's wonderful to have the opportunity to do that,” added series creator Mike Bartlett.

Later in the day, BBC Studios hosted a ‘From Idea to Global IP’ MIP Headliner session, including some sharp views from BBC chief content officer Kate Phillips on the prospect of algorithms – rather than audiences – dictating commissioning decisions.

“Someone asked me ‘Would you commission based on algorithms?’ I’d like to say, very clearly, absolutely not. Just because the distribution mechanism is changing, doesn’t mean our creative goals have changed,” she said.

“YouTube is not a commissioner, it’s a platform. If you commission based on algorithms, you are literally a creative carcass. That’s it. You’ve got to look at the audiences and what they want.”

That said, BBC Studios is excited about the potential of using platforms such as YouTube to expand the reach of its shows.

“We can tell stories in different ways to audiences that may not have seen the storytelling on traditional services,” said Shelley Macintyre, CEO, brands and licensing at BBC Studios. “It’s really important when building brands that you know where the communities are and can surface the content to them in a natural way and authentic way.”

The Grand Auditorium also hosted YouTube and NBCUniversal, reflecting on a banner year for the latter that has taken in the Winter Olympics, the men’s football World Cup as well as event TV from Love Island USA to The Traitors.

Matt Schnaars, NBCUniversal’s president of platform distribution & partnerships, talked about its recently-announced agreement with YouTube, which includes YouTube TV, advertising-supported content, subscription bundles and international streaming services.

A key goal is to convert YouTube users into subscribers to the Peacock SVOD service. “We think there’s evidence of interest in high-value content,” he said.

Justin Connolly, YouTube’s global head of media and sports partnerships, outlined his company’s pitch to the television industry around greater collaboration.

“We fundamentally believe that the audience is actually growing because of the opportunity to extend these properties off the main telecast. And those audiences return to the telecast and the live events themselves,” he said.

The Grand Auditorium also hosted YouTube and NBCUniversal, reflecting on a banner year for the latter that has taken in the Winter Olympics, the men’s football World Cup as well as event TV from Love Island USA to The Traitors.

Matt Schnaars, NBCUniversal’s president of platform distribution & partnerships, talked about its recently-announced agreement with YouTube, which includes YouTube TV, advertising-supported content, subscription bundles and international streaming services.

A key goal is to convert YouTube users into subscribers to the Peacock SVOD service. “We think there’s evidence of interest in high-value content,” he said.

Justin Connolly, YouTube’s global head of media and sports partnerships, outlined his company’s pitch to the television industry around greater collaboration.

“We fundamentally believe that the audience is actually growing because of the opportunity to extend these properties off the main telecast. And those audiences return to the telecast and the live events themselves,” he said.

MIPCOM’s second day also saw sessions exploring some of the digital trends shaking up the entertainment market. Netflix and creator-collective Sidemen Productions talked about their pioneering – but risky – Outside show, which involved a new episode dropping daily for eight days, on a drastically-short production schedule.

“We’d never done anything like it in UK unscripted. As much as we have our processes, they taught us we could really get things done. It was a really big experiment for us and it worked really well,” said Netflix commissioner Keziah Ogun.

Meanwhile, vertical micro-dramas were under the spotlight in a session where Omdia’s Maria Rua Aguete described the format as “fundamentally misunderstood” – yet noted that it’s pegged to generate more than $14bn in revenue worldwide this year. “We are addicted to short-form content,” noted Aguete.