MIPCOM 2026 Takeaways: 5 Big Shifts and the DigiGuardians Approach

MIPCOM remains the central meeting point of the international television business. The 2026 edition gathered 10,100 delegates, including more than 3,150 buyers from 104 countries, yet the composition of the market said as much as its size. Alongside studios, broadcasters and distributors, the floor was increasingly shaped by brands, AI developers, vertical content producers and creators, each now holding a recognised place in the content value chain.

Several shifts ran through the week's conversations. Recent consolidation is redrawing how catalogues are managed and monetised. Digital footprint is being treated as a measurable business indicator rather than a marketing outcome. YouTube has moved firmly into the distribution mix, vertical content has developed into a market with its own economics, and AI is beginning to influence how content is produced, licensed and valued. The arrival of global advertising groups as prospective investors in content, together with a creator economy expanding into new formats and revenue models, points to an industry where value is spread across far more windows than before.

The real question this expansion raises is how well IP can be protected across these new spaces. As rights are exploited across more platforms, formats and territories, exposure to unauthorised distribution grows in proportion, and piracy has consistently adapted to new consumption habits faster than the industry has adapted its protection. Content security is therefore moving from an operational function to a strategic one, closely tied to how licensing, distribution and partnership decisions are made.

At MIPCOM, these were precisely the questions DigiGuardians found itself answering on the ground. Over 13 years, we have seen piracy follow audiences onto every new platform and format, and our work has been shaped by anticipating where they would go next.

In the sections that follow, we look at the five themes that defined MIPCOM 2026 and consider each one from a content protection perspective: where the risks are emerging, how rights holders can respond, and how IP can become more resilient against unauthorised consumption. The common thread is method: a proactive approach that leaves no gaps in protection. An IP can grow and evolve across new windows only for as long as it remains protected.

1. Local stories, global demand

Demand data is the new currency

According to figures shared at MIPCOM's Asia x Global Executive Summit, the Asia-Pacific screen economy is expected to reach US$172bn in 2026, up from US$136bn in 2021. The message from the stage was clear: digital is now the main driver of the region's screen economy, and linear TV is declining faster as a business model than as a medium. Local film stood out as the clearest area of growth.

The deals signed in Cannes showed how closely markets are now connected. MBC Group and CJ ENM agreed a long-term partnership that brings a dedicated TVING hub to MBC Shahid for MENA audiences, while Globo licensed its first Globoplay Original to the BBC. Content now moves between regions that used to sit outside each other's distribution maps.

If local content now has global demand, rights holders need a way to see where that demand is and protect it before it is lost.

DigiGuardians' answer

Our answer starts with the data we already collect. Through our monitoring, we regularly see films from fast-growing local markets being consumed far beyond their home territories, often in regions where no licensed release exists yet. Distribution may still be local, but audience demand for these titles is already global. Pirated copies also show how quickly and how widely a title is spreading, which makes them a measure of virality as well as of infringement.

This has two implications. First, tracking official channels is no longer enough: rights holders also need to know where their content is surfacing and where demand is forming. Second, local films need protection on a global scale. In many cases, DigiGuardians protects local productions across multiple territories at once and identifies pirated distribution in markets where the film has not yet been released.

Piracy data is more than a record of losses. It shows where unmet demand exists, which makes it a valuable signal for identifying the next market a title should enter through licensed channels. This is the thinking behind our upcoming content intelligence product: a demand map built from protection data, showing rights holders where their content is being sought and where the next licensing opportunity lies.

2. Digital footprint: every screen is a value channel

Where there is traffic, there is piracy

A digital footprint is no longer optional. Research presented at MIPCOM across 23 markets showed that mobile viewing and generational change are reshaping distribution, and concluded that social video does not replace television; the two reinforce each other. TikTok reported that 69% of its users have created content about a film or series, and the same idea came up across sessions: fan communities should be treated as partners in growing an IP, not as a marketing channel.

Advertising budgets are following the audience. WPP attended MIPCOM for the first time, and dentsu became the first headline partner of MIP BrandWorks, the market's new platform connecting brands with content. The groups that manage global media budgets now want to co-produce and co-finance content, not only buy advertising around it.

When value sits in every place an audience gathers, the challenge is keeping control of that footprint.

DigiGuardians' answer

We have long argued that a digital footprint includes every place your content exists online, including the copies you never licensed. Unauthorised uploads, cut clips and mirror sites are part of that footprint. If they are not mapped and managed, they capture the audience data, advertising revenue and search visibility that should belong to the rights holder.

The aim is not to suppress fan energy but to direct it. Clip sharing builds fandom when it happens through official channels and erodes value when it happens through pirated copies. Where there is traffic, there is piracy, and as brand money enters content, this matters even more: pirated copies reduce campaign reach, distort measurement and put brand safety at risk.

Our monitoring also shows that even IPs without an official digital presence already have a footprint, created by piracy. DigiGuardians identifies that hidden footprint so rights holders can see the real demand for their IP and bring it back into licensed channels. As these spaces become more attractive to audiences and advertisers, protecting them becomes more important too.

3. YouTube: from rival to core distribution

Content ID is not anti-piracy

YouTube arrived in Cannes with its largest presence to date. Major broadcasters and studios presented their YouTube partnerships, which now range from ad-supported content to subscription bundles and international distribution. A shared goal across several of them is converting YouTube viewers into subscribers on their own platforms, and YouTube told producers directly that it has no plans to move into production. Content is now licensed simultaneously for YouTube, FAST, streaming platforms, linear TV and social media.

With official, licensed and pirated content sitting on the same platform, many rights holders assume that Content ID has the problem covered.

DigiGuardians' answer

It does not. Content ID is a useful rights management tool within YouTube, but having it in place does not remove the need for anti-piracy protection. Piracy has learned to work around automated matching. Mirrored images, altered colours, cropped frames and similar modifications allow pirated uploads to avoid a match, so they stay online and continue to draw views and revenue. Content ID also covers only one platform, while pirated copies move across many.

Real protection means monitoring that identifies modified copies, works across platforms beyond YouTube and acts on what automated systems miss. That is the gap DigiGuardians covers, so that the growth YouTube offers as a distribution channel stays with the rights holder.

We explored this gap in detail in Beyond Rights Management: Why Anti-Piracy Requires More.

4. Microdramas: from emerging format to undeniable market

Built to be shared, easy to pirate

Omdia forecasts that microdramas will generate more than US$14bn in global revenue this year. The format had been building for some time; it can no longer be overlooked. MIPCOM gave it a dedicated programme for the first time, including a global microdrama leaders' summit and matchmaking sessions that brought European public broadcasters to the table.

Vertical content is now working in two directions. A+E and Lifetime brought around 200 titles adapted into vertical microseries, extending existing IP to mobile audiences and new advertisers. Hartbeat took the opposite route with FOX: 25 vertical series come first, and those that perform are developed into film or TV projects. Brands are financing vertical stories through integrated advertising, and TikTok is moving from a platform where content spreads to a distribution partner.

As microdramas become a revenue-generating format, the challenge is protecting content that is designed to be shared.

DigiGuardians' answer

Where there is content, there is piracy, and every successful microdrama now has a pirated version somewhere. Vertical content is also the easiest content in the market to pirate. Episodes are short, built to be clipped and end on cliffhangers designed to be shared. The same cliffhangers that keep audiences watching also drive traffic to pirate sources, and piracy sites dedicated specifically to microdramas are already operating.

As consumption grows, so does pirated viewing, which makes protection a requirement from the first episode. DigiGuardians monitors both general and format-specific pirate sources so that the value of each episode stays within licensed channels.

We explored this topic in detail in Protecting the Rise: Microdramas and Piracy.

5. AI: an accelerator on both sides

Protecting the value of the catalogue

MIPCOM held its first AI Entertainment Forum, and the discussions were far more practical than expected. Most of the new AI companies in the market were offering tools that make existing work more efficient: dubbing, subtitling, content discovery, licensing and workflow. Almost no one was selling fully AI-generated series. The prevailing view on stage was that creativity is not moving to AI; it is a tool for filmmakers, not a replacement.

The most important signal concerned value. Catalogues are gaining worth beyond viewing, as their content and data become assets in their own right. One documentary producer reported that licensing an archive of around 8,000 hours for AI training generated roughly US$300,000 in additional revenue last year.

If AI is increasing the value of every catalogue, rights holders now have to protect that value while the same tools become available to everyone.

DigiGuardians' answer

AI is making piracy easier as well. The tools that speed up dubbing and subtitling also allow pirates to adapt content into new languages within hours and take a title into markets it has not yet officially reached. A film released in a single language can appear in several others on pirate sources before any localised version is licensed.

This changes what protection means. It is no longer only about removing copies of the original. It is about protecting the full value of a catalogue before it is localised: its audiences in every language, its future licensing opportunities and its worth as an asset. DigiGuardians searches the way local audiences search, in their language and with the terms they use, because that is where piracy appears. This keeps the markets a title could enter open for licensed distribution.

AI is part of our answer too. Against piracy that now spreads faster than ever, it helps us detect at greater speed and scale. Our models are trained on our own data, built over 13 years, which allows us to prioritise and act on infringements faster.

What it means for rights holders

MIPCOM is where the global television industry sets its direction. The strategies discussed in Cannes, from global distribution of local stories to vertical formats, YouTube partnerships and AI, will shape how content creates value in the years ahead. Every one of them depends on the same foundation: IP that remains under the control of those who own it.

More windows, more formats and more markets mean more ways for value to leak. Protection can no longer follow distribution; it has to move with it, or ahead of it. That is the approach DigiGuardians has built over 13 years: proactive, data-driven and present wherever audiences and pirates go next.

Your Rights. Your Revenue. Your Rules.