IF last week's giant broadcasting conference at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai could be likened to a television programme it would have to be Blind Date.
The Marche Internationale des Programmes (MIP) conferences, run by the French Reed Midem company, are an institution among Western film and television companies who use them as a marketplace to buy and sell programming. Asian companies had long attended the conferences too, but the regional explosion in cable and satellite television in the past three years meant the area was finally deemed ready for its own MIP.
American and European programme makers come out in hot flushes when they look at Asia's potential and in particular China's 1.3-billion population. If all the burgeoning cable and satellite television systems in the region went on a major buying spree, the programme makers fantasised, existing markets would be left in the dust.
This is where the Blind Date analogy comes in: last week in Wan Chai the two sides, East and West, met on an arranged encounter. Each had heard a lot about the other - a mixture of truth, rumour and exaggeration - but they had never actually met before.
They exchanged polite greetings, and circled politely but warily around each other on the exhibition floor and at the many parties surrounding the three-day conference. Some exchanged telephone numbers, while a smaller number even ended up in bed together. But unfortunately for many, they departed Hong Kong frustrated, swearing they would never return.
The main object of interest was the 53-strong official Chinese delegation drawn from 12 provinces, the largest-ever attending an international television festival.