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Tomorrow's television on multiple screens, wherever and whenever viewers want to watch, is just around the corner. The problem is that not even the brightest brains in the audiovisual and digital worlds know what it will look like, yet.

Visitors at the MIPTV trade show
© AFP Valery Hache

Only one thing seems certain. It will be the audiences, users and viewers that will shape the audiovisual content and the devices of the future.

That was the one of the few predictions shared by the thousands of the world's top movers and shakers of the TV and digital entertainment who crowded into this Riviera resort for the busiest ever influential "MIPTV featuring MILIA" trade show that closes its doors on Friday.

"It's all about putting the audience in the driving seat," the BBC's senior new media executive Ashley Highfield told a packed seminar here Wednesday.

Another leading media visionary, Gary Carter of influential content producer and distributor FreemantleMedia, shares the same view.

Visitors at the MIPTV trade show
© AFP Valery Hache

"The reason we're all struggling to identify new business models is because the audience hasn't told us what they are yet," Carter emphasized.

"TV will continue to grow, but we need to rid ourselves of past expectations of what that means," he added, noting that no medium has ever ended up being used in the way its inventors intended it to be, including the radio and the telephone.

The television set in the sitting room looks as if it will stay there, at least for the moment, most industry experts agreed.

But it will be increasingly sharing TV time with other new screens popping up all over the place, from mobile phones, to portable TV devices, the video-enabled iconic iPod and, of course, the PC.

In today's digital universe, the audience is more directly active than ever before, industry experts said.

Viewers understand and feel at ease with all the new digital devices that are coming onto the market and want to get more involved in the content.

People walk in front of the building hosting the annual MIPTV trade show
© AFP/File Valery Hache

Creating communities where viewers and users can connect to share their audiovisual experiences is vital to the future of television.

Nowhere is that becoming more evident than on the Internet.

AOL chief Jonathan Miller also came to town to beat the drum for the fast-growing importance of the Internet in audiovisual entertainment, saying TV, gaming and Internet users are going to be in for lots of treats.

AOL will shortly launch its first online reality game, "Gold Rush" where online users have to find clues that could lead them to the stashes of gold buried around the United States.

Other online entertainment innovations are also in the pipeline, including the BBC's new interactive drama "Jamie Kane" that is aimed at young audiences and is already pulling in big numbers of users.

The revolution that is sweeping the television landscape resulted in one of the biggest and most active MIPTV/MILIA trade shows ever, the organisers said Thursday.

Visitors at the MIPTV trade show
© AFP/File Valery Hache

This show was all about where the industry is going and how it should plan for the digital future, Paul Johnson, director of television for the show's organisers Reed MIDEM told a press conference Thursday.

Around one-third of the 12,000-plus participants who jetted in for the show were programme buyers, the highest number ever, reflecting the healthy state of the burgeoning audiovisual entertainment market, he noted.

"This is also our largest ever MIPTV featuring MILIA market," Johnson emphasized.

Business during the five-day show has been extremely busy with "a real buzz of buying", he added.

Key new audiovisual entertainment players such as Internet giants AOL and Yahoo! attended the show for the first time as well virtually all the heavyweight telecom players, including Nokia, Ericsson, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.

A view of the MIPTV trade show
© AFP/File Valery Hache

The industries' anxiety about what they need to do to survive and flourish in the dramatically changing audiovisual market-place also ensured that the show's beefed-up conference programme pulled in record audiences of media and digital execs.

The heavyweight Asian contingent at the show also had a busy week, Johnson told AFP. "It's been a hugely successful MIPTV for the Asian region," he said.

Digital hi-tech powerhouses South Korea and Japan have both notched up more business at this show than last year, he said.

China has been buying more, particularly in documentaries, and India is promising to be one of the next big successes, he said.

All in all, it looked pretty certain this week that television is not about to disappear.

As AOL's Jonathan Miller noted, "all types of TV will exist". But the amount of different forms of media being consumed will all increase and "prime time will morph into my time."

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