MIPCOM CANNES 2026: TV’s Biggest Market Is Getting a Lot Bigger Than TV
From Banijay and the BBC to YouTube, microdramas, brands and AI, this year’s MIPCOM line-up reflects an entertainment industry whose old boundaries are disappearing fast
Cannes in October has traditionally meant one thing: television people buying and selling television. That description feels increasingly inadequate.
When MIPCOM CANNES returns to the Palais des Festivals from 12–15 October 2026, the familiar machinery of the global content business will still be there: commissioners, producers, distributors, buyers, formats, screenings and the meetings that somehow migrate from conference rooms to the Croisette.But look at the programme being assembled around them and something bigger is happening.
YouTube is expanding its presence. Creator Dhar Mann is getting MIPCOM’s first pre-opening Headliner slot. AI has its own forum. Microdramas and vertical video have entered the programme. Brands and agencies are being brought into a dedicated marketplace.
Meanwhile, some of traditional television’s biggest operators - Banijay, BBC and BBC Studios among them - are coming to Cannes to talk about franchises, audiences and how established entertainment businesses compete in that same world.
MIPCOM 2026 therefore looks less like an argument about the future of television than a gathering of all the different industries now fighting to define what television becomes.
“The strategy behind some of the world's most enduring entertainment franchises”
The old television business isn't disappearing quietly. Banijay Entertainment Chairman Jeff Zucker and CEO Marco Bassetti will headline a keynote conversation on 12 October, putting one of the world’s major independent production groups on MIPCOM’s main stage.
The BBC and BBC Studios are bringing another version of the same conversation.
Chief Content Officer Kate Phillips, BBC Studios CEO and Chief Creative Officer, Global Content Zai Bennett, and Brands & Licensing CEO Shelley Macintyre will examine the strategy behind properties including Bluey, Dancing with the Stars and Doctor Who.
Those three titles are instructive.
One is a preschool animation that became a global cultural and licensing phenomenon. One is a format capable of being remade around the world. One is a British television institution that has survived by repeatedly reinventing itself.
In an industry obsessed with discovering the next hit, MIPCOM is also asking an arguably more valuable question: how do you make a hit keep paying?
“One of the world’s most influential storytellers”
Then there is Dhar Mann. The founder of Dhar Mann Studios will take the Grand Auditorium on Sunday 11 October, before MIPCOM formally opens, as the market's first pre-opening Headliner.
His presence tells you plenty about where the industry thinks power is moving.
A generation ago, a global television market could largely concern itself with broadcasters, studios and distributors. Today, creators can build enormous audiences without waiting for a broadcaster to commission them. MIPCOM is responding accordingly.
YouTube is returning with an expanded 2026 programme focused on distribution, monetisation and digital growth, while executives Pedro Pina and Justin Connolly are among those joining media partners on stage.
The question hanging over Cannes is no longer whether the creator economy belongs alongside television.
It is what happens when the two stop being separate economies.
“Microdrama & Vertical Content”
Perhaps nothing captures that collision better than two words that would have sounded bizarre on a major television conference programme not long ago: vertical content.
MIPCOM's new Microdrama & Vertical Content Programme brings together figures including CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker, Holywater Tech's Anatolii Kasianov, and executives from RisingJoy, RoseBerry and GammaTime. The format is changing because the screen has changed.
For decades, television trained audiences to sit down, turn towards a horizontal screen and give a programme 30 or 60 minutes. Mobile entertainment has spent years training them to do almost the opposite: hold the screen vertically, watch anywhere and decide within seconds whether something deserves another swipe. Microdrama sits directly inside that behavioural shift.
For traditional producers, the uncomfortable question isn't whether vertical drama counts as television. It's whether the audience cares about that distinction at all.
“AI to the centre of the global media and content business”
Another boundary MIPCOM is deliberately crossing is AI. The inaugural MIP AI Entertainment Forum will bring studios, streamers, AI companies, creators, brands and IP owners into the same conversation, with Utopai Studios among its headline partners and co-founder and CEO Cecilia Shen delivering an opening-day keynote. MIPCOM describes AI as one of the industry's biggest transformations in decades. There is no shortage of questions behind that claim.
Who owns an AI-assisted production? What happens to production costs? Which jobs change? What happens to the value of intellectual property when content can be generated at scale? And if producing more becomes dramatically easier, does human taste become more valuable rather than less?
The technology is moving faster than the industry's settled answers.
Cannes gives the people writing the cheques, making the programmes and building the tools somewhere to argue about them in the same room.
“Brands, Agencies, Creators, AI innovators and Mainstream Media”
The money is moving too. The inaugural MIP BrandWorks programme is designed to bring brands, agencies, creators, AI businesses and mainstream entertainment companies together around content partnerships. Dentsu has been named its first Headline Partner, with Meta also participating across the programme. Again, the labels are becoming less useful.
A brand can finance entertainment. A creator can operate a studio. A social platform can distribute premium programming. A television franchise can become a licensing business. An advertising agency can find itself involved in developing entertainment people might actively choose to watch. That creates opportunity, but also a fairly brutal test.
Audiences know when they're being advertised to.
The challenge isn't simply putting brands into entertainment. It's making something entertaining enough that nobody reaches for the skip button.
The red carpet still matters
For all the talk of structural upheaval, MIPCOM remains a place where programmes themselves need to make noise. Sid Gentle Films' Honey, a darkly comic Cold War thriller made for BBC iPlayer, BBC One and ZDF in association with FIFTH SEASON, will receive its world premiere at the market. Queen Silvia, inspired by the real-life romance between Sweden's Queen Silvia and King Carl Gustaf, will also receive a special world premiere. The drama is produced by Pyjama Pictures and Unlimited Stories for Prime Video DACH and Nordics and German broadcaster SAT.1.
Elsewhere, Angie Harmon will keynote MIPCOM's Women in Global Entertainment Power Lunch, while Brazilian media group Globo will receive the 2026 MIPCOM Recognition for SDG Impact.
And because this is still Cannes, eventually somebody has to throw a party.
The official Opening Night Party will be co-hosted by Merzigo and YouTube, with media analyst Evan Shapiro joining as Merzigo's special guest.
Television hasn't disappeared. Its borders have.
Put the announcements together and MIPCOM 2026 starts to look like a useful snapshot of an industry with a mild identity problem. The television establishment remains formidable. Banijay, BBC Studios, global distributors, broadcasters and major producers aren't being replaced overnight.
But they are increasingly sharing audiences, talent, advertising money and cultural relevance with businesses that don't necessarily describe themselves as television companies.
YouTube wants more of premium entertainment. Creators are building studios. Brands want intellectual property rather than another advert. Vertical dramas are competing for viewing time. AI companies want into the production process. Traditional studios want franchises capable of travelling across every one of those environments.
Which makes the real question in Cannes this October surprisingly simple:
When everybody is in the content business, what exactly is the television business?
MIPCOM CANNES takes place at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France, from 12–15 October 2026, with Dhar Mann's pre-opening Headliner taking place on 11 October.
