In 2008, I was retained to develop programming strategy for HITN-TV, a Spanish-language public television network located in Brooklyn’s historic Navy Yard. The recommendation: Create low-cost, primetime series that respond to the urgent information needs of around 50 million U.S. Latinos. Immigration was the no-brainer as topic #1. With super-scarce resources, we went on to …
By Gregory Crofton, publisher and editor of ChannelNonfiction.com. President-elect Donald J. Trump’s new right-hand men David Bossie and Steve Bannon are committed producers of hard Right documentaries. We spoke to Bossie last year about the film studio he led as president and chairman of Citizens United (CU), a conservative political advocacy group. CU has produced …
(Originally published, September 21, 2014). The PBS/NGCI documentary The Fidel Castro Tapes caught our attention with its compelling and unseen footage of the Cuban revolution and the Cold War drama that followed. We wondered about the challenges of creating an archive-based film about an 88-year old Spanish-speaking personality who can be dangerously controversial, and who …
The message of Choppertown is that documentaries can make money from Facebook. It is the story about how a deficit-funded, observational documentary evolved into a ground-breaking Facebook “channel.” Thanks to Zack Coffman for sharing the ups, downs, and ups again of the Facebook marketing engine Choppertown. Here is Part 1 of my Case Study on documentary strategies for …
I’m delighted to be joining the two Morgans: Freeman and Spurloch under the spotlight at MIPDOC in Cannes. Here is the program guide for MIPDOC, which kicks off on the Croisette on Saturday April 2. It’s not too late to register! Take advantage of all the insider knowledge and networking opportunities. My expert panels are: Sunday 3 April, 9.30-10.15, …
Here is my expanded selection of our ever-popular and instructive Case Studies. Each documentary or reality project is unique. The 21-project collection is a mosaic that describes models for your future productions. As they say in Recovery programs: “Take what you like, and leave the rest!” Read now before my free, practical research and analysis …
YouTube Red is the new SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) service that targets the booming market pioneered by Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. RED announced its first original documentary special and reality series at Sundance last month. That’s just the first step by the corporate Goliath which recently reported $21.4 Bn revenues for 4Q 2015. I …
In Fall 2014, producer Antje Boehmert was in post-production with Berlin-based director Carl Gierstorfer on Rise of the Killer Virus, a medical detective story on the pre-history of HIV. The team closely followed the breaking news on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Carl began to look for opportunities to cover the story. His research went into …