Steve Harris bursts with inspiring insights into the pitching process. He has a gift for breaking out the key qualities for a successful pitch. As my charismatic, globe-trotting co-presenter, Steve has shared his insider knowledge to grateful producers at WESTDOC (LA), AIDC (Adelaide), Sunny Side (La Rochelle), and more. He draws on his veteran experience …
Variety Intelligence recently published Fading Ratings, featuring a useful series of charts that captures the downward audience trend over five-to-seven years of several portfolios of U.S. networks. The starting points are 2014 or 2016. SVOD’s Rising: The context-setting chart highlights the rise of Netflix and the top subscription streamers. The SVOD’s may be leading the …
Story of the Month: Investors Target Unscripted Production. There’s a frenzy of investment in unscripted production // Wall Street Journal. New SVOD’s fail to understand that success depends on streaming addiction // Lightshed Partners. Netflix Australia: Revenues surge but avoids taxes and local production // The Age + Documentary Business. Audiences want more documentaries in streaming libraries …
Howard Swartz is the Senior Vice President Docs and Specials, Factual Networks & Streaming, for Discovery. For Sunny Side of the Doc‘s Meet the Executive session, he joined Peter Hamilton to share Discovery’s documentary strategy and key buckets. Following are session highlights, including clips of several projects that reveal Howard’s priorities. MISSION & STRATEGY What …
by Dan Salerno. Discovery continues to go “all in” with Discovery+. Announcements of new premieres are rolling out almost daily, with four more last week alone. One announcement, the upcoming Discovery+ special, Crikey! It’s a Baby! prompted us to check in with Animal Planet. Three months since the much publicized launch, what is coming, what is …
Nielsen released their Top 10 Streamed Programs for 2020 (U.S.) in three categories: Originals, Acquisitions and Movies. Their key metric is Minutes-Streamed-per-Show. In the Originals category, the Top 10 is led by OZARK with 30.5 billion views in 2020. TIGER KING is #4 with 15.6 billion views. When I looked deeper into the data, I …
Discovery Inc. President and CEO David Zaslav announced the discovery+ streaming service on Wednesday. Here are: The key facts. Takeaways from veteran programming exec Dan Salerno and myself. And another veteran network exec added valuable feedback. Mission “With discovery+, we are seizing the global opportunity to be the world’s definitive product for unscripted storytelling.” David …
Sports ratings in the U.S. are in sharp decline. Why? What does it mean for the Documentary/Unscripted sector? What’s driving Sports viewing? Some industry analysts blame Covid: Empty stands take away the noise, the fan reaction shots and fan storylines that both energize games and deepen the viewer’s emotional engagement. Many fan-free top-flight games in …