How is Canada’s documentary sector navigating the Netflix Era? I turned to Stephen Ellis who I first met in the ‘Eighties when he was a high-volume program supplier to my client, the fledgling Discovery Channel. Stephen was CEO of Ellis Entertainment which he sold in 2011 after 47 years in the business. He is now …
It’s always a pleasure to share the UK’s highest-rated documentary and unscripted programs for the past year. My ratings snapshot for 2019 is comprised of: The Top 50 in the combined Documentary and Lifestyle / Hobbies category. My Takeaways. Then #51-100. I concluded with the Top 25 Current Affairs programs because there is some overlap …
A new publication packed with original research from Peter Hamilton and DocumentaryBusiness.com: DOCUMENTARY PRODUCTION ROADMAP: 34 CASE STUDIES From Concept & Development to Production & Distribution Contents Complete set of 34 detailed Case Studies of award-winning projects 200+ pages of original research Projects in U.S., Australia, UK, Germany, Japan, France, Scandinavia and more. Compelling Takeaways …
The audience for COUNTRY MUSIC extends Ken Burns‘ run as the high-performing PBS documentarian. The average audience over 8 episodes was 4.42 million. That’s more that 3x the PBS average for prime (1.24 million). And slightly higher than the average for the VIETNAM series (4.38 million). COUNTRY MUSIC maintained its audience, even returning to peak …
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 …