With the storm-lashed French resort town of Cannes still picking up the pieces after devastating thunderstorms and flooding left more than a dozen people dead, the annual television industry market Mipcom is underway.

Organisers had considered delaying the event but its size - there are almost 14,000 people in attendance - made that logistically impossible. Instead, a planned red carpet was cancelled and the traditional "opening night" was subdued.

Vicious storms lashed the Riviera coast over the weekend, killing more than a dozen people and leaving restaurants and hotels flooded and sections of the coast without power, internet and phone lines.

The handful of roads linking the small towns of the Riviera, including Cannes, Antibes and Nice were flooded as local government authorities struggled to deal with the magnitude of the disaster.

Though the planned opening night celebrations were dialled down, Mipcom's organisers said staff were working "non-stop to limit the disruption caused by this exceptional situation."

"Despite the flooding ... Mipcom will open for business on time," the statement said

But whether it is business as usual for television's power-lunching, phone-wielding deal-makers remains to be seen: Cannes' vibrant restaurant strip is, in parts, still without access to EFTPOS, and mobile phone coverage in the small town is patchy at best.

In the last 24 hours, simply getting to Cannes has become a challenge, as flights were diverted from the nearby Nice-Cote d'Azur airport, train services were stopped due to flooding on the tracks and the few highways which service the coast were either closed or narrowed to a single lane.

French president François Hollande and interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve were touring affected areas on Sunday. Mandelieu-La Napoule mayor Henri Leroy described some of the scenes as "apocalyptic".

Officials say the death toll could reach 16 or higher, it already includes at least seven people who died in their cars when an underground car park filled with storm water.

As is customary with many of the events which are held in Cannes, the town's capacity is expected to be pushed to breaking point in the next few days with the influx of approximately 13,600 attendees, most of them exhibitors and sellers of television programs.

Approximately 4500 buyers will be shopping for content, and of those, about 1300 are from streaming and on-demand platforms such as Netflix.

The streaming and on-demand segment of the industry - that is, VOD (video on demand, such as iView or Hulu) and SVOD (subscription video on demand, such as Netflix, Stan, Amazon or Presto) - represents almost one third of all program buyers.

Given that traditional television has not shrunk overall, it demonstrates powerfully the extent to which so-called "disruptors" have pushed into the broadcasting space.

In total, there are more than 2000 companies exhibiting content from approximately 100 countries.

Among the high-profile guests at this year's market are the newly anointed Top Gear host Chris Evans, Heroes Reborn creator Tim Kring, British screenwriter Andrew Davies and The X-Files creator/producer Chris Carter.

Carter will attend the world premiere of the updated The X-Files, a limited series commissioned by 20th Century Fox which will see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson return to their roles as Mulder and Scully after a decade.

Fox's two senior-most studio executives, Dana Walden and Gary Newman, will also be honoured at the market.