Future Changes?
Next year's event will be held at Cordoba in Spain. It will be interesting to see if there is any bending on the rigid exclusion of North American broadcasters. At this year's event both ITEL's chief executive Andrew MacBean and Charlie Caminada, Hit's sales director, made a case for opening up the event not just to North American broadcasters but to broadcasters globally. While everyone understands the caution by which such change should be approached it seems that there is a growing call to open up the event, on a controlled basis, and that if European producers hope to secure carriage across the Atlantic, there is a need to allow non-European broadcasters at least the opportunity of observing how European prouducers operate. The argument against is a genuine concern that once the event is opened up it will be swamped by non-European cash rich players. Let's hope that somehow a workable compromise can be reached. Watch this space.

P.S. So enamored with the animation industry is Syros that the mayor has announced from now on it will host an annual animation event!

Marie Beardmore is a London-based freelance journalist who specializes inwriting about the international animation industry. She is also developing her own animation projects which include a children's series for 4-9 year-olds and an animated sitcom.