CANNES: Reed Midem‘s director of television division Paul C Johnson is a pleased man. MipCom has proved to be successful: the organisation recognised News Corp No 2 Peter Chernin, and DVD propagator Warren Lieberfarb with awards. Also, scores of deals have been struck.

"It‘s been three months of hard work", Johnson says, "... Non-stop. And I am glad it is being appreciated." He is already looking forward to MipTV which is to be held in March-end at Cannes.

Johnson believes that Indian production companies and broadcasters can utilise Reed Midem‘s two umbrella properties Mipcom and MipTV better. "They have been doing so for sometime now. But in the past three years participation levels have gone up," he explained.

Johnson made a special reference to Eros Multimedia, the largest distributor of Hindi films abroad. "They are like the Warner Brothers of India. They have been coming to every market with their library," he said, continuing that Eros MD Kishore Lulla needs to be appreciated for this.

"There is a lot of opportunity for Indian companies - both on the sales and acquisition side. The longer they wait there, the longer they are going to take to exploit that opportunity. If we, at Reed Midem, can serve as a conduit for Bollywood and the rest of the world, we are more than happy," Johnson stated.

He said that Reed had recently appointed an Indian agent in the form of former Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF)‘s Bhuvan Lall, and "he is looking at a larger presence in the not so distant future."