MIPCOM 2026: WHO OWNS THE FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT?
Banijay bets on scale. Netflix defends creative autonomy. YouTube rewrites distribution. And creator-led studios challenge Hollywood’s traditional economics.
From Banijay's ambitions to Netflix's global commissioning model, the creator economy's arrival in the studio business and AI's growing role in production economics, MIPCOM 2026 is revealing an industry in transition. The most interesting story isn't necessarily the deals being announced. It's what the people making them are saying.
There is no shortage of ambition in Cannes this week. There is considerably less agreement about what the television business will look like in five years.
At MIPCOM 2026, the traditional industry's most powerful players have been sharing a stage with executives whose businesses barely resemble conventional television.
Banijay is betting on scale. YouTube is positioning itself as a distribution partner rather than a competitor. Netflix is defending the value of local creative autonomy. Creator-led studios are building industrial-scale production operations. And AI companies are arriving with a proposition the industry's financiers can understand: different production economics.
The common question running through the conference is no longer simply who makes the content. It's who owns it, who reaches the audience, and who captures the value.
BANiJAY: THE AGE OF THE ENTERTAINMENT CONGLOMERATE
The first joint MIPCOM appearance by Jeff Zucker and Marco Bassetti since Banijay's merger with All3Media was an exercise in defining what the newly enlarged company intends to become.
The combination has created the world's largest independent production group, with pro-forma annual revenues exceeding €4.3 billion and operations across 25 territories.
But Bassetti's most significant message was about business identity.
“We are definitely now an entertainment company and not just a producer.”
— Marco Bassetti, CEO, Banijay Entertainment
That distinction is central to the company's strategy.
Traditional production revenues remain important, but the commercial ambition extends into live entertainment, digital distribution, sport and intellectual property exploitation.
The combined catalogue, distribution networks and production companies offer more opportunities to develop formats across multiple territories and commercial channels.
Zucker also addressed the pressure facing smaller businesses, acknowledging that independence is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain without access to infrastructure, leadership and capital.
Banijay's position is straightforward: creative talent remains essential, but scale increasingly determines how far an idea can travel.
The company's planned expansion into American scripted production is another indication of its ambitions. Yet management emphasised that success will depend on acquiring or developing the right creative capabilities, not simply deploying capital.
For independent producers, the implications are less comfortable.
The largest companies can offer financing, market access and distribution. But each consolidation raises a familiar question: how much of the underlying intellectual property and long-term upside remains with the people who created it?
RTL + YOUTUBE: WHEN THE COMPETITOR BECOMES THE DISTRIBUTOR
Evan Shapiro supplied one of Cannes' sharpest assessments of conventional broadcasting's digital transformation. His phrase, “cosplaying digital,” captured the difference between having a presence on digital platforms and genuinely restructuring a business around them.
The conversation between RTL Deutschland CEO Stephan Schmitter and YouTube EMEA Vice President Pedro Pina offered a concrete example of what that restructuring looks like.
RTL has placed approximately 200 older episodes of Alarm für Cobra 11 on YouTube.
The episodes generated around 30 million views over twelve months, attracting an audience that was 83% male with an average age of approximately 30.
According to Schmitter's presentation, the distribution strategy was associated with a 123% increase in first-video views on RTL+ and approximately 26% more RTL+ subscriptions for the relevant content.
These are RTL's reported results, not independently audited measures of causality.
Nevertheless, they illustrate the possibility of using an external platform to generate revenue, revive library content and direct audiences towards paid services.
YouTube's position is equally revealing.
“We as a platform are not invested in producing content.”
— Pedro Pina, VP EMEA, YouTube
In other words, YouTube wants the industry's programmes, formats and audiences without necessarily adopting its traditional commissioning model.
RTL, meanwhile, wants access to audiences it cannot reliably reach through its own services alone.
The relationship is cooperative, but hardly sentimental. Both parties are seeking commercial value from the same viewing behaviour.
For producers, this changes the distribution conversation.
A programme's first television transmission may no longer be its defining commercial moment. Its archive, clips, adaptations and digital communities can continue generating attention and income years later.
THE BBC: CREATIVE INSTINCT VERSUS THE ALGORITHM
If RTL's argument was about distribution, BBC Chief Content Officer Kate Phillips offered an important counterpoint about creativity.
Speaking alongside BBC Studios executives Zai Bennett and Shelley Macintyre, Phillips made clear that a change in distribution channels does not require abandoning the editorial judgement behind successful programmes. The BBC has expanded its YouTube strategy, including commissioning content developed specifically for the platform.
But Phillips remains sceptical about allowing predictive algorithms to determine what should be made. Her alternative indicator is decidedly analogue: the number of construction cranes visible across London's skyline.
Phillips uses construction activity as an informal signal of the economic outlook, which she believes influences public appetite for different entertainment formats.
During difficult economic periods, audiences may gravitate towards comforting programming. During periods of prosperity, they may be more receptive to confrontational entertainment.
It is an unconventional way to discuss commissioning, but the underlying point is serious.
Audience data describes existing behaviour. It does not always predict the next cultural phenomenon.
BBC Studios, meanwhile, is examining how successful formats become durable international brands.
Dancing with the Stars, Doctor Who and Bluey demonstrate how programme ideas can develop commercial lives beyond the original broadcast.
The challenge is to understand that potential early enough to build the appropriate rights, licensing and distribution structures around it.
The BBC's position is a useful reminder: distribution technology changes quickly. Human appetite for compelling stories does not necessarily follow the same cycle.
NETFLIX: GLOBAL SCALE, LOCAL DECISIONS
Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria offered a different perspective on how major organisations maintain creative effectiveness.
She oversees 27 local content teams producing programming in 50 languages across more than 50 countries.
Her description of the management philosophy behind that structure was disarmingly simple.
“My superpower is I hire really great people and I let them do their job.”
— Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer, Netflix
Behind the simplicity sits a large international commissioning infrastructure.
Netflix's global model relies on local expertise identifying stories, talent and cultural behaviour that cannot always be understood from a centralised headquarters.
The business challenge is to preserve those insights while providing international financing, marketing and distribution.
For producers outside the US and UK, this remains one of the most important changes of the streaming era.
International success no longer depends exclusively on producing programmes that resemble American television.
But global distribution does not eliminate commercial discipline. As streaming matures and commissioning growth slows, projects still need to demonstrate why they deserve investment.
DHAR MANN: HOLLYWOOD'S AIRCRAFT CARRIERS MEET THE SPEEDBOATS
One of MIPCOM's most revealing appearances came before the market officially opened.
Dhar Mann and his studio CEO Sean Atkins took the stage representing a production business built outside the conventional television system.
Mann began creating videos with an iPhone. His company now reports approximately 170 million followers, produces several hours of scripted entertainment every week and is developing a substantial studio complex in Los Angeles.
Atkins, whose previous career includes traditional media businesses, described the difference between established Hollywood operations and emerging creator-led companies using a memorable comparison: aircraft carriers versus speedboats.
The aircraft carriers possess enormous resources, experience and infrastructure.
The speedboats are designed to turn, test and respond quickly.
Dhar Mann Studios illustrates what happens when an audience-first operation begins adopting industrial production methods.
Writers' rooms, standing sets, recurring production schedules and direct audience feedback are integrated into a system that does not require a conventional broadcaster to validate each new idea.
The company is now working with established entertainment partners, suggesting that the relationship between creator businesses and Hollywood is becoming less about competition and more about complementary capabilities.
For traditional producers, the lesson is not necessarily to become YouTubers.
It is to recognise that ownership of an audience can fundamentally change negotiating power.
AI: KOREA'S PRODUCTION ECONOMICS CHANGE THE CONVERSATION
Artificial intelligence arrived at MIPCOM with its own dedicated entertainment forum.
But one of the clearest arguments for AI did not come from a technology demonstration.
It came from CJ ENM Studios CEO Ken Oh.
During his discussion with Utopai Studios founder Cecilia Shen, Oh described how dramatically Korean television production costs have increased.
He cited What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, which he said had cost approximately $400,000 per episode when originally produced.
A comparable production today, he estimated, could cost three times as much.
That is the economic context behind his interest in AI-assisted filmmaking.
“Korean creators are not afraid. AI will create new opportunities for new talents.”
— Ken Oh, CEO, CJ ENM Studios
Oh described AI as a way for Korean producers to approach visual ambitions previously associated with considerably larger Hollywood budgets.
For Utopai, the opportunity lies in integrating AI into professionally directed and produced filmmaking rather than replacing creative decision-making with automated generation.
The studio's newly announced historical feature Cortés, starring Antonio Banderas, provides an early test of that proposition.
The larger question is whether the technology can deliver measurable production savings while preserving creative control, rights certainty and audience confidence.
It is an important distinction.
Generating impressive images is not the same as delivering a completed, commercially viable film.
THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE RHETORIC
Not every speaker in Cannes was selling an expansion strategy. Frédéric Vaulpré of audience research company Glance presented a more difficult picture of the international content market.
New linear series launches declined 12% across 48 territories in the first nine months of 2026.
Major streaming platforms are also moderating new-content additions, while expanding their catalogues through broadcaster partnerships and licensing arrangements.
Advertising-supported subscription tiers are gaining importance, established franchises remain valuable, and social video continues to attract viewing time.
Vaulpré's central argument was that streaming has entered a mature phase, bringing conventional broadcasters and digital platforms into increasingly direct competition — and cooperation.
There is a contradiction at the centre of the market.
Audiences have access to more programming and more distribution platforms than ever before, yet opportunities to finance entirely new programmes are becoming more selective.
The result is greater pressure on independent producers to establish the commercial case for each project.
Recognisable intellectual property, existing audiences, proprietary access and flexible distribution rights are becoming increasingly valuable negotiating assets.
THE NEXT BUSINESS OF ENTERTAINMENT
Across the MIPCOM stages, the vocabulary is changing.
Executives talk about franchises rather than programmes, communities rather than viewers, ecosystems rather than channels, and long-term exploitation rather than single transmission windows.
Some of that language is familiar corporate positioning.
The business developments behind it are harder to dismiss.
Banijay is expanding the scale and commercial reach of its production infrastructure. RTL is finding new audiences for established programmes through YouTube. Netflix is operating an international network of local creative teams. Dhar Mann is transforming a creator-led business into a conventional-scale studio operation. And producers in Korea are looking to AI to address the rising costs of scripted entertainment.
These are different responses to the same structural challenge.
The economics of producing content, finding audiences and retaining commercial value are being renegotiated simultaneously.
The question for the next generation of independent production companies is not simply whether they can make exceptional television.
It is whether they can build businesses that continue to benefit from the success of what they make. That may prove to be the most consequential message from Cannes this year.
