FRAPA has “significant” role to play at NATPE19 December 2011

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THE FORMAT business over the last five years has become “a robust and significant portion of the macroeconomics of the global media business”.
That’s the word from Rick Feldman, president and CEO of NATPE Content First. And he adds FRAPA has played a crucial role in the growth of that business.
The rise in the number of territories across the globe involved in selling formats, Feldman points out, “has meant that formats also have become a significant aspect of NATPE’s business”. The 49th edition of NATPE takes place at the Fontainebleau resort in Miami from January 23-25. Numbers for the event are up year on year. At press time, some 600 buyers from 65 countries and 250 exhibitors had signed on. FRAPA will be in Miami with a near full compliment of board members, among them National Geographic Channels CEO David Lyle, Absolutely Independent CEO and president Patty Geneste, formats adviser and broker Michel Rodrigue and The Gurin Company’s president and CEO Phil Gurin, who is also a board member of NATPE. ITV Studios’ director of international formats Mike Beale, and Prensario Internacional’s director Nicolas Smirnoff will also be in town.
During the event, FRAPA will also be offering consultations with format experts to NATPE delegates. “Rights protection is very important so, while NATPE is itself a marketplace, not a forum where we can hammer out the delicate issues of copyright, it is a place where FRAPA and its members can have a visible and important presence,” Feldman says. Feldman adds that Latin America and Canada — both big format regions — continue to increase their attendance at NATPE. More recently, there has also been an up-tick in the number of Europeans making the trip. As Feldman says: “Miami is simply easier to get to than was Las Vegas.”

Marlene Edmunds