Brunei's Local News - Brudirect.com

Cannes - A golden age for television beckons as established TV companies go head on with the Internet and other new digital media platforms to woo audiences worldwide.

And with a fast growing variety of new forms of audiovisual entertainment being rolled out for audiences of all ages, viewers are firmly in the driving seat. New countries participating for the first time this year include Brunei Darussalam, Nepal, Oman, Gambia and Botswana.

"Creativity remains the key to success, particularly in a world where the public has ever more power to choose and interact," underlined Paul Johnson, director of television at Reed MIDEM, which organizes MIPCOM, the world's biggest audiovisual content trade show that opens its doors today.

Recent surveys reveal that traditional TV viewing

is far from dead and is even on the rise in some countries, including the United States.

But radical changes are taking place in how people get their TV fix and the battle on to entertain fragmenting audiences wherever they are, be it on the Internet, mobile devices like mobile phones and gaining consoles or even the good old TV in the sitting room. Against this backdrop, the 24th edition of the five-day MIPCOM looks set to be busier than ever.

Asia's digital powerhouses, Japan and South Korea, will lead the Asian charge here this week with China and India also due to turn out in-large numbers.

Glamour will be provided by a host TV and film stars due in town that include British actress and former Bond girl, Jane Seymour, Canada's Neve Campbell and Jude Law of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" fame. -- Courtesy of AFP