BANFF – The term “premium” seems to be a favoured buzzword around the Banff World Media Fest this year, but there’s no doubt with more deep-pocketed platforms fortifying their non-fiction content strategies, linear networks are taking bigger swings at tentpole and event programming.
But what the heck is Premium non-fiction?
Is it all about pricier content? What are the metrics or other factors for labelling a project Premium? And do these bigger budget Premium properties really pay off?
Panelists Jon Bardin, VP documentaries and specials, Discovery Channel; Igal Svet, senior director, development, National Geographic; Lisa Opie, director of factual, BBC Studios; and James Younger, EVP, factual, Revelations Entertainment, tackled the topic in a Tuesday panel.
It started off with trying to nail down the average budget assigned to such projects.
Bardin kicked off by saying that Discovery “won an Emmy for something that cost us only five figures… but generally these projects are in the six figures and up to the high seven figures.” (per episode)
But in the end Premium is “really about the aspiration for the project… so the word is often misapplied… your goals as a network are what matter,” he said.
Moreover, “two things are happening… first you have to go big to break through clutter, and second you need to keep your brand healthy because brands are beginning to get lost to platforms.”
So the concept of Premium is also about network brand fortification in the Netflix era. Having said that, Bardin acknowledged “we know that there are audiences that will never ever come to linear… so we need to be selling digital too… which is why we bought into Group 9 Media.” (Group 9 Media is a digital media holding company based in NYC, and Discovery is the parent company with roughly 35% ownership.)
He also alluded to Premium being of two distinct corporate goals: a) ratings play projects and b) reputation projects such as one they’re doing on the protection of wild tigers.
Of special interest to me was Discovery’s Premium documentary coming this October, titled Above & Beyond: NASA’s Journey To Tomorrow with Emmy-award winning filmmaker Rory Kennedy at the helm. The show will be exploring the inner workings of NASA, and the project is tied to the 60th anniversary of this civilian space program. It was her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, who is best remembered for his 1961 commitment to sending an American to the moon “before this decade is out.”
Opie took the position that money wasn’t the deciding factor for the Premium notion but “the ambition and the ability to make a statement… an event in its own right” were more important.
For her, “premium factual can cut through clutter… Blue Planet 2 had over 60% of U.K. viewers watching… the (UK Parliamentary) budget cited it as a catalyst for policies reducing consumer plastics… and it drove huge numbers on digital… one online clip had 400 million views… Twitter was getting 1,000 clicks per hour,” she enthused.
Opie also screened a Premium BBC landmark series titled Dynasty which will air this autumn. It features Sir David Attenborough, showcases technological advances, was shot over four years, and each episode follows individual animals – lions, hyenas, chimpanzees, tigers, penguins – at the most critical period in their lives.
Svet got right down to his accountant’s notes to say “for the lower side it would be $600,000 an hour up to $1.5 million,” for these premium shows – and he wasn’t bashful about opening the kimono because, at the outset of discussions, “we want to know what’s the biggest, the most epic version of a producer’s idea.”
It’s “no longer enough to have a great idea, now we need a strong marketing attachment… maybe a marquee director, or incredible on-screen talent, or some kind of global icon.” – James Younger, Revelations Entertainment
He had a number of projects coming soon to a screen near you sounded pretty cool as aspirational Premium non-fiction. On his National Geographic hit-parade we’re factual offerings like a space series with Elon Musk, another on the Secret Service, a prison sit down and tell all with swindler Bernie Madoff, plus an exclusive regarding Princess Diana.
The one that caught my attention most was a Premium natural history item titled Hostile Planet, coming to us in the Spring of 2019, looking at the most extreme environments on the planet. It will employ new technology, looks incredible from what I saw, and is directed by the genius director Guillermo Del Toro of Pan’s Labyrinth the triple Oscar winner from 2006 and of other feature film fame.
In fact, Hostile Planet even has that eerie, fairy tale like feel from jungles to oceans.
Younger got an audience chuckle by admitting that “it’s remarkable to me how we can spend all the money we’re given… even if it were limitless probably… do we really need a helicopter or go to all these very remote locations?”
For him, it’s “no longer enough to have a great idea, now we need a strong marketing attachment… maybe a marquee director, or incredible on-screen talent, or some kind of global icon.” He pointed to his project, The Story of God with Morgan Freeman as a classic Premium non-fiction television series.
Launched in 2016, it features Freeman on a quest to find how most religions perceive life after death, what different cultures regard as the act of creation, and a few other mysteries.
Overall, most of the panelists shied away from co-productions for this model. If you’re a Discovery or National Geographic doing business in roughly 200 countries and territories, your bread and butter is commissioning and holding 100% of the global rights.
Documentaries and non-fiction content were once viewed as the relatively earnest work of worthy creators, but in the era of Trump and “alternative facts” or “fake news” where truth is not self-evident or – when found – truth truly emerges as stranger than fiction, it’s not hard to see why engaging factual fare is on the rise.
Indeed, documentaries now account for almost 20% of the Cannes film market.
When the social, environmental, and political reality of our front pages and televised daily news bombards us with the coarsely incredible, being truly authentic takes on new meaning and relevance.
These creators are brave people; people employing the art of image and sound to encourage a sense of shared humanity and just perhaps, helping us make our world a little wiser and more compassionate.
