Netflix is steadily expanding its programming appetites in the feature documentary, popular Factual and Reality Formats. Follow recent reports from the field, and in my new and expanded guide NETFLIX 2021: What You Need To Know Now! True Crime: Netflix is launching the original True Crime documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door. The feature …
Nancy Daniels oversees Discovery Channel, Science, and Animal Planet, including day-to-day operations and creative production development. She shared her thoughts on Discovery’s strategy in a recent podcast interview with CTAM‘s Vicki Lins. LISTEN CTAM’s Vicki Lins interviews Nancy Daniels, Chief Brand Officer, Discovery & Factual (27 minutes, July 13, 2020) NOTES What are your days …
REELZ commissions around 200 originals each year and acquires another 50+ programs. The focus is on: Celebrity, particularly from the world of entertainment, and Notoriety, in the True Crime genre. Unlike most platforms like Netflix or U.S. cable nets, REELZ acquires only U.S. rights, allowing producers to profitably exploit rest-of-world in a popular genre. I …
Veteran media industry consultant Ed Hersh returns to my podcast platform to explore the multiple seismic changes shaking the Documentary / Unscripted sector and what producers need to know. We discuss how the term ‘Perfect Storm‘ captures the confluence of: Covid impacts, The shift by viewers from channels to direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms like Netflix and …
The U.S. Pay TV distribution footprint is forecast to shrink by a record 2.5 million subscribers in Q2 2020. This follows a previous record drop of 2 million subscribers in Q1 2020. In the past 12 months, 6.5+ million customers have cut the cord. The forecast loss for Full Year 2020 is 8-9 million subscribers. …
Dr John Morse likens the consumer’s COVID experience to living thru an episode of “The Twilight Zone”. He analyzes U.S. lifestyle and media usage trends during the pandemic in a PACT (UK Producers) webinar/podcast hosted by Dawn McCarthy-Simpson. John takes us on a deep dive into the data, highlighting the Big Trends: Viewing has become …
I’m reading in The New York Times about the complex system of COVID-testing and armband ID’s used by the director Baltasar Kormakur to get his Sci-Fi series back into production. According to Mr Kormakur, as well as a rigorous protocol for testing, temperature-taking and masking, “those wearing yellow armbands could be near the camera; the …
Quibi is a dud, as I predicted. Even with a free 90-day trial, the Quibi app has been installed by less than 3.5 million consumers. It ranks #125 among free iPhone app downloads. That’s behind Duolingo, the language app where I recently failed to learn much Swedish (“Hej, hej!”). Founder and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg …