Mongolia is a fascinating, free-spirited country, and the nomadic culture extends into all elements of life, even business. Most of Mongolia's land is public, people basically go wherever they want. Therefore it was not too surprising to learn that their television industry is seemingly ok with piracy. I had the fortunate opportunity to take part in the 2nd Annual Mongolian TV Forum (MTF) held February 5-6 in the unexpectedly modern capital of Ulaanbaatar. Over 200 media professionals attended the forum and held quite lively debates about piracy and programming practices. Mongolians are an educated people, illiteracy was virtually eliminated during the socialist period with seasonal boarding schools for nomadic children, and English is taught beginning in 4th grade. They know what they are doing. Nomin Chinbat, CEO of Mongol TV has been driving change for the media sector in the country, having been educated in the UK and widely-traveled. She wants the future of Mongolia to be part of the global picture and that includes playing by industry rules. To demonstrate this mission, Nomin recently accepted the position as the Chair of the Mongolian Media Ethics Council. She leads by example in her business, buying programming legitimately from companies such as Sony, NBC Universal, ITV and built a first-class HD Studio and programming and production team that launched a year ago. The team was trained by The Format People and guided by Michel Rodrigue who brought western media experts to Mongolia for 2 years for the channel. Mongol TV now has a live morning show 6 days a week, all locally produced. Nomin spearheaded the creation of the MTF last year and invited her fellow broadcasters and government regulatory reps to join the presenters who flew in from around the world - Sony, Disney, ITV, Fremantle and more. This year they upped the ante by bringing in the studio reps along with outside media such as Julie Makinen, the Los Angeles Times Asia Bureau Chief, ContentAsia's Publisher, Janine Stein; and China Media Management's Kristian Kender to share thoughts on why and how Mongolian broadcasters can and should do better by going legit. They discussed the financial implications of piracy and the comparison of how China has turned its image around in the past few years by licensing Formats and buying other programming in the correct manner. The second day of the Forum was a market showcase where distributors could educate the broadcasters on how to buy and offered programs at reasonable prices that Mongolian broadcasters could possibly afford. There was also discussion from companies such as Singapore-based Bomanbridge Media who just opened an office in Ulaanbaatar to entertain co-productions. Stay tuned to this small yet emerging country - they will surprise you in the next few years with their evolution.
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