DISCOP's Eastern delights: smaller TV gets respect.

The program market focusing on Central and Southeast Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, known as DISCOP, will celebrate its 12th year in Budapest this year.

DISCOP's attendance has been steadily growing since its launch, and this year's market is expected to draw around 350 buyers representing TV stations (including the eight largest in the region), pay-TV services, DVD distributors, is well as mobile and broadband network operators. In addition, some 120 international sellers of TV programs and TV show concepts, film, interactive content, telenovelas and thematic channels will be setting up shop either in suites or in desks provided with TV-VCR combinations.

Helena Jensch, international sales director at Dutch format house Absolutely Independent, said that the market plays a valuable role in creating space for buyers from smaller stations and territories who either can't afford to travel to MIP and MIPCOM, or who, if they do, cannot always command time in distributors diaries filled with richer broadcasters from larger territories.

Helge Koehnen, head of sales at Germany's Bavaria Media, agreed that this was very much the rationale behind the establishment of DISCOP, and that it continues to be the case, "especially in the countries of the former Soviet Union." This was a view echoed by vice president international sales at U.S. animation house DIC, Dan Waite, who noted that, "there are many buyers from these territories who do not attend MIP, NATPE or L.A. Screenings."

While there appears to be general satisfaction with the number and quality of buyers attending, both Koehnen and Waite felt that the market would benefit from the attendance of more buyers from the larger territories in the regions served by DISCOP, especially Poland and the Czech Republic.

At the traditional VideoAge MIP-TV breakfast, DISCOP's Patrick Jucaud promised that the "no show" problem that has troubled DISCOP in the past--where buyers make appointments in advance, but never show up--was going to be addressed. (At markets such as MIP, only about five-10 percent of pre-organized meetings fail to take place, but at DISCOP, the number is over 20 percent.) This year, the DISCOP "Valet Meetings Organization Team," made up of seven staff members, will be dedicated to the organization of meetings and will try to educate buyers as to the importance of keeping their appointments.

This market will make official the implementation of screening boxes. A survey proved that buyers are split, but for the most part, attendees feel that it can only benefit the market since screening boxes will case the pressure on buyers.

Helge Koehnen believes DISCOP to be "a very efficient market, well organized and well run." Although he wondered about the wisdom of last year's decision to split the market into two levels with suites and 'screening boxes.' "I can see that in doing so they have created more opportunity for attendees who otherwise might not make it," he concedes, but added, "I still wasn't keen on the arrangement in practice."

Melissa Pillow, sales manager Eastern Europe at Tepuy, said the 'screening boxes' might be a good idea, observing, "I have heard several buyers commenting that they do not like the suites because once they enter, they feel that they can't leave without buying something."

Once known exclusively as a TV broadcast market, DISCOP is increasingly attracting buyers and sellers of DVD content--a business that is undergoing major growth in Central and Eastern Europe and the third DISCOP Campus Conference will be appropriately titled "Making Money with DVDs."

On June 24, DISCOP will be holding its first-ever "Telenovelas Day." This year's DISCOP focuses on mobile content with the first edition of "TV Loves Mobile," exploring the status of mobile operators as buyers of TV content and also present case studies analyzing mobile users' behavior in the region.

There will also be a video presentation of "The World's Best TV Formats," a one-hour overview of the year's most innovative TV show concepts available from around the world.

Finally, throughout the market, DISCOP will be sponsoring "TV Ideas From The East," a drive to organize individual meetings between Eastern European producers of TV show concepts and Western TV formats distributors and broadcasters in the market for new ideas.

Viorel Micula, president of National TV, a Romanian TV station launched in October of last year, said, "This will be my second attendance at the market. I am here again because this is the place that feels most friendly for an emerging media business like ours."

Micula added, "As television stations from Central and Eastern Europe evolve, DISCOP will gain more value in the interest of everybody."

Held from June 24-26, DISCOP is taking place in the Buda part of the Hungarian capital, at the Sofitel Atrium, formerly known as the Hyatt Regency.