This year marks the 16th edition of the Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF), which is taking place December 1 to 4 at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands.
Running concurrently with the fifth edition of ScreenSingapore (SS), the 2015 installment of ATF is poised to attract more than 5,000 attendees from across 60 countries, according to Hui Leng Yeow, the senior project director of Asia TV Forum & Market and ScreenSingapore at Reed Exhibitions.
Asia TV Forum & Market 2016 consists of two parts: the market and conferences. ATF’s market will provide attendees with opportunities to buy and sell, as well as to network with producers, broadcasters, OTT players and cable operators in the region.
With more than 850 buying companies attending, Asia TV Forum & Market 2016 is aiming to bring delegates closer to Asia’s buying community, facilitating the sale and export of content across all genres and platforms to the region’s buyers. With growing interest from Asian content buyers, this year’s event will also see more exhibitors from China and Japan, as well as new entrants such as Bloomberg, STUDIOCANAL, FOX International Channels, Rainbow and MNC Contents, which are participating in ATF for the first time.
Attendees will also get to take part in conferences and learn from influential leaders in the TV, film and digital-media landscapes. Yeow says that the overall ATF 2016 lineup presents a greater variety of the Asian countries covered, “giving ATF 2015 a more holistic view of the industry in Asia.”
Kicking off Asia TV Forum & Market 2016’s pre-market conference as the keynote speaker for “Into the Future of Television: Asia’s Move Forward” is D.J. Lee, the president of the media contents business at CJ E&M (Korea). He will highlight some of CJ E&M’s recent successes, as well as his past experiences organizing the Korean pay-TV channel tvN. Another keynote speaker is René Rechtman, the head of international at Maker Studios (U.S.), who will be elaborating on the “Development and Expansion in Asia’s Digital Marketplace.” He will discuss market shifts and trends in the digital ecosystem in Asia and give attendees the background growth story of Maker Studios in the region, sharing new initiatives about product, programming and distribution categories within the Asian contingent.
Buyers and producers will also be presented with the latest know-how and trends for kids’ content at Junior@ATF, alongside the deployment of a dragnet on narratives for new formats and ideas that can travel across borders at Formats@ATF, an initiative that was developed with producers in mind as a forum to create, develop and market ideas with format experts through a conference setting, as well as masterclasses conducted by creative talents such as Danny Stack, a writer and director whose credits include Thunderbirds Are Go, Octonauts and Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?, and Melodie L. Shaw, a member representative and organizer of the Writers Guild of America (U.S.).
Steve Macallister, the CEO of all3media international (U.K.), will highlight the current business landscape that traditional players face with disrupters and shifts in content consumption, both in the U.K. and in international markets.
Some of Asia’s top buyers such as Maggie Xiong, the senior director of international acquisitions at Youku Tudou (China), and Charlene Lai, the senior director of content acquisition and licensing, APAC, at Le Corporation (Hong Kong), will discuss the evolving role of international acquisitions and the types of new ideas and shows that they are looking for among content providers.
Last year’s edition hosted more than 71 speakers and 658 exhibitors, Yeow says that 2015’s ATF attendees can expect to be a part of the mechanics within the heart of Asian television. “From the dynamically curated market and conference, where they can tap into the growth potential of Asia’s market, to experiencing the robust character of Asia’s entertainment-content industry by connecting with international content sellers and Asian buyers, participants will be able to mesh together and be [aligned with] the constantly evolving Asian television landscape.”
Held in conjunction with ATF, the 2015 edition of ScreenSingapore will launch a brand-new feature, the Southeast Asian Film Financing (SAFF) Project Market. The first of its kind, SAFF will seek to connect promising producers and their projects with commissioners, investors and co-production partners.
