MIP LONDON’s spotlight on the creator economy: Executives from YouTube, Snap, Spotify, and Sidemen Productions

After introducing an “ambitious new focus” in 2025 that put digital content creators at the heart of its iconic France event, organizers of the MIPCOM CANNES global TV and streaming gathering are starting 2026 by expanding creator programming for its three-day gathering MIP LONDON.

This will be MIP LONDON’s second year, and it plans to welcome more than 1,500 attendees to hear from executives at digital mainstays like YouTube, Goalhanger, Snap, Tubi, and Spotify, as well as leaders at creator studios like Sidemen Productions.

Among those attendees will be more than 650 buyers from media platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, BBC, HBO Max, ITV, and more, along with sectors including telecom, manufacturing, and publishing.

Like with its flagship Cannes event, which originated four decades ago and is timed for when U.S. TV and film studios historically roll out their international sales, MIP founded its London iteration to run alongside another major annual moment in traditional media: the London TV screenings.

“The London screenings have become one of those temple moments in the year,” MIPCOM CANNES Director Lucy Smith explains. “You have the L.A. screenings and the London screenings. These are studios doing their own screenings–it’s not an event somebody owns. So we decided, let’s come along, provide a central venue and do what we do, which is bring in more global companies, bring in different segments, create more opportunities, and give everyone a moment to come together during what’s become such a busy week.”

Things are intentionally done on a bit of a smaller scale than the four-day Cannes event, Smith says, but the goal is still the same: “To unite these different parts of the [entertainment] industry.”

And digital content is an increasingly sizable part of that industry.

For this year’s MIP LONDON, running Feb. 22-24 at the IET London and The Savoy Hotel, MIP plans to feature “key players at the intersection of digital content, platforms and communities in a program spanning analysis, commissioning, and monetization, with an increased emphasis on structured networking through matchmaking and expert-led roundtable events.”

Programming includes mainstage keynotes from:

• Pedro Pina, VP of YouTube EMEA & Tony Pastor, co-founder of Goalhanger
• Victor Bengtsson, CEO of Sidemen Entertainment & Adam Cohen, Head of Sidemen Productions

Other highlights include:

• a “deep dive into the central role of creators in driving audience growth, format development and monetization with international platforms” with Snap’s Julie Boegart, Head of Creator Partnerships, EMEA; Spotify’s Saruul Krause Jentsch, Head of Podcasts, Central Europe; and Tobias Schiwek, CEO of digital studio and talent agency We Are Era
• a “Masters of Digital Content” panel that brings together “leading voices  from established media groups and next-generation digital studios to unpack how premium digital content is being commissioned, produced and scaled today” (including senior executives from MTV, Electrify Video Partners, GloMotion Studios, Sony Pictures Television, and our own Tubefilter
• a panel on “how premium digital content is commissioned and scaled by established media groups and creator-led studios,” with contributors like Amie Parker-Williams, MTV’s Director of Digital Commissioning & Production
• a senior podcasting panel with execs from Podimo, Patreon, Little Dot Studios, and Acast

The event’s wider programming will also feature content around digital formats, microdramas, AI, and branded entertainment along with screenings and showcases from around the world, organizers say.

Smith says that this slate of digital- and creator-forward programming proves MIP LONDON and MIPCOM CANNES overall are “where the global entertainment industry goes to do business.”

“To the audience of creators and brands who are interested in co-production, monetization, and global distribution, this is where it’s happening, and there’s a place for them here,” she says.

For more information about MIP LONDON, go here.

MIPCOM CANNES is a Tubefilter partner.