Buyer Profile: Discovery

June 5, 2009 World Screen

At Discovery Channel in the U.S., Gena McCarthy, the senior VP of development and production, says diversity is part of the network’s programming strategy. “We are looking at a very broad range of content. We are always on the prowl for content we can order as 13-episode series, but we also look for limited-run mini-series and classic one- or two-hour specials across all of Discovery’s genres.” 

Popular series include Deadliest Catch, MythBusters and Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment. Discovery also continues to air blue-chip natural-history programs, including Nature’s Great Events, which is a new co-production with the BBC, and such archaeological programming as Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer. Classic science specials like Inside Planet Earth, the annual Shark Week stunt and Before It Was America, a six-part series about dinosaurs in North America, are also part of the mix. 


Discovery generally likes to buy all rights for the shows it commissions, in part because of its aggressive push into new media. “Because that is so important for us, we largely commission most of our content,” McCarthy says. “Having unique content online for some of these major series has proven to be very successful for our group.” 


Developing new talent, using innovative CGI techniques to enhance the story and finding ways to reinvent a genre are important, McCarthy adds. “We get hundreds of pitches about deadliest jobs and brawny men, and we evaluate them all very carefully because we know there is something there we haven’t found yet,” she says. But she stresses the importance of simple, classic storytelling. “Compelling characters doing interesting things is a good combination for us,” she says.