TRUE ROYALTY is a London-based subscription video service dedicated to British Royalty. Co-founder GREGOR ANGUS describes True Royalty as a “clearly-defined interest” or mega-niche. His analysis points to tens of millions of hyper-engaged Royal TV viewers. They are concentrated in the U.S. and Commonwealth countries. True Royalty’s business case was endorsed by U.S. box office …
Sue Dando has been the head of The Nature of Things, CBC Television’s flagship documentary science and nature series, for seven years. The strand is one of the most successful television series in the world: it is now heading into its 59th season. Sue shared her strategy and commissioning process at Sunny Side’s Science-themed Meet The …
Chris Hoelzl is SVP, Program Development, Smithsonian Networks (USA). He is responsible for the development of original productions, co-productions and the acquisition of completed programming. He shared his strategy and commissioning process at Sunny Side’s Science-themed Meet The Executive session, estimating that 5-10% of Smithsonianʼs annual 200 hours of production is Science-based. We are publishing …
Ricarda Schlosshan is a supervising editor and commissioner for Terra X, the popular primetime documentary slot of German public broadcaster ZDF. Ricarda described what Terra X is looking for at Sunny Side‘s Science-themed Meet The Executive session. She shared the details of Terra X’s pipeline: 45 new programs per year Each film is 44 minutes, …
Greg Boustead is director of Science Sandbox, a portfolio of strategic grantmaking at the Simons Foundation, focused on outreach and engaging new audiences with science. He shared his strategy and grant-making process at Sunny Side of the Doc’s Science-themed Meet The Executive session. We are publishing Greg’s very informative session as a podcast, though without …
CuriosityStream is the subscription video online service created by Discovery founder John Hendricks to serve the audience that loves classic factual programs. Clint Stinchcomb is a veteran of the Discovery senior executive team. He went on to start up and lead other digital and traditional media franchises, and is now president and CEO of CuriosityStream. …
THE SIEGE OF MECCA uncovers the violent event in 1979 that has shaped recent history, but that is still wrapped in secrecy. My Podcast / Case Study combo with Dirk van den Berg details how he and Pascal Verroust secured mainly European funding for their 620,000+ Euros project, beginning with a fast 150,000 Euros commitment …
UNITED SKATES is an exceptional feature documentary that combines pure and often hilarious entertainment with a hard-hitting expose of how race and class force their crushing ways into the most innocent American pastimes — even roller-skating. For this case study, which is published with Sunny Side of the Doc, I spoke with the co-producer / …