MIPTV - Attendance plummets 14 percent

OK, attendance at the MIPTV fair in Cannes was down. I tend to ignore the official registered figures because there were so many last minute cancellations. Great if you were doing serious business of course, more of a market of the serious and less of a total zoo.

But some figures surprise me. Xinhua reported that China has made a record high worth of deals at this year's MIPTV, the world's largest audiovisual market, amid the ongoing global economic downturn.

The five-day MIPTV trade fair ended its 46th edition, where China had its largest delegation ever, with more than 40 Chinese companies striving to break into the European and American market for television programs.

China scored 6.49 million U.S. dollars of deals at MIPTV, the highest since it began participating in the fair in 1990, CITVC senior marketing director Cheng Chunli told Xinhua.

What? 40 Chinese companies do deals at the world's largest TV market for 6.49 million dollars. Is that worth coming to Cannes for? Some phone manufacturers make that kind of money in a couple of hours.