Tempus f***it

The MipCom which starts today in Cannes is certain to be influenced by the sudden dramatic upheavals in the world's economy. Nevertheless there will be many who point out that when times are tough people need entertainment, distraction escapism more than ever. So those of us working in the media will whistle in the dark and hope for the best.



The autumn gathering of television professionals is the pendant of the spring event, MipTV. But in the pre-convergence era, going back to the seventies, the October get-together was mainly for those of us on the 'fringe' of the traditional television broadcasting industry... we were already thinking digital. And even in 1980, twenty-eight years ago, my concern was to drum up support for the notion that established visual artists, in particular fashion and advertising photographers, should see video as one of the tools at their disposal.

How I wish we'd had back then the new Canon Eos with its HDTV recording capability!