A terrifyingly quiet Mip TV market closed in Cannes today, highlighting seismic shifts in the international sales environment and drawing attention to RX’s bid to reshape the April event.

But not everyone drew cataclysmic conclusions from the smaller crowd, saying intelligence gathering was good, conversations were solid and business was being done.

Some well-attended conference tracks underlined high demand for information and insights about, among other topics, the growth of the Fast environment and format production.

Korean and Japanese formats sessions were packed, with high interest in unscripted shows led by CJ ENM’s “The Time Hotel” and scripted titles such as KBS Media’s “My Fellow Citizens”, which has been adapted as “The Company You Keep” starring for Milo Ventimiglia and Catherine Haena Kim for ABC in the U.S.

It was full house too for the panel on the unscripted show of the moment – All3media’s psychological format, “The Traitors”, created by Marc Pos.

The nuts-and-bolts production panel included BBC’s unscripted editor, Syeeda Irtizaali; France’s Studio 89/M6 head of creative and development, Celine Cauderlier; IDTV creative director, Jasper Hoogendoorn; Peter Van Der Vorst, RTL Netherlands’s content director; and All3Media’s formats EVP, Nick Smith.

Mip TV’s sprawling location, which in past years has seen U.S. studios and major indies spread beyond the Palais and onto the beachfront, made this year’s attendance look even more sparse.

“If it was in a different (smaller) venue, people would have thought it was an excellent event,” one U.K.-based distributor told ContentAsia.

Asian delegates said they didn’t mind this year’s less-frenzied pace, appreciated the focus on co-development/production and said it “feels like Mip TV is starting from scratch”.

Other than RX’s initiatives to recreate the April event, one of the market’s top conversation topics revolved around the impact on Mip TV of the London Screenings and the Lille-based Series Mania, along with the sheer number of trade events that now crowd annual calendars.

Final attendance numbers had not been released at press time; updates at www.contentasia.tv as soon as we have them.