Buyer Profile: HISTORY

Exploring International HISTORY

“The beauty of the HISTORY brand is that it allows us to look at a lot of different genres, because history touches just about everything,” says David McKillop, the senior VP of development and programming for series at A&E Television Networks’ HISTORY channel, who stresses that producers should not limit their pitches based on some narrow notion of the channel.

 “We don’t want people to do my job, which is to pre-think what is a good idea for HISTORY,” he adds. “We want you to bring us your best ideas, and we’ll work with you to make sure it becomes a great idea for HISTORY.”

That range of programming can be found in some recent or upcoming series. These include Expedition Africa, a show from Mark Burnett Productions that retraces Stanley and Livingstone’s expedition in Africa, World War II in HD and How the Earth Was Made, which grew out of a two-hour special.

AETN’s international channels are generally structured as joint ventures or licensing deals, but McKillop works closely with networks outside of the U.S. “I am aware of their development lists and they are bringing ideas from their channels to us, so it is a very collaborative relationship,” he says.
Although many of the international channels get a large chunk of their programming from the U.S., they are also producing a growing slate of local programming.

Richard Melman is the channel director at HISTORY in the U.K., as well as at BIO: The Biography Channel, Military History and Crime & Investigation Network, which are operated as a joint venture of AETN and Sky. He notes that they are now commissioning or co-producing about 30 percent or 40 percent of their programming.

“Localization pays dividends for us because a U.K. story that we commission will always rate better than a third-party acquisition,” Melman explains. Examples of those commissions include a series on Henry VIII to mark the 500th anniversary of his ascension to the throne.

At a digital channel, however, budgets are limited, and Melman says HISTORY U.K. regularly works with other broadcasters, including the local terrestrials. “If we come across a very good idea we know can’t be done on our budgets, we will take it to terrestrials like Channel 4 or Five or international broadcasters like ZDF,” he says.

AETN’s Asian and Latin American channels are also expanding their original production. In Latin America, Eduardo Ruiz, the executive VP and general manager of A&E Ole Networks, explains that they currently commission about 80 or 90 hours of programming across all of their networks—A&E, HISTORY and BIO. “Probably about 95 percent of this original programming [is currently] for HISTORY, with the rest for BIO,” he says.

Ruiz expects the slate to include about ten different biographies of well-known Latin American figures over the next year.

Some of the productions are also based on U.S. formats and ideas. “In the U.S. we have Ice Road Truckers and we have commissioned a series about dangerous jobs in Latin America,” he explains.

Other local productions for HISTORY in Latin America include an investigative series that will look at the terrorist group FARC in Colombia and other armed conflicts in the region; a four-part series on the Maya Indians; and a look at the Alamo from the Mexican point of view.

Next year, it is also looking to create a number of programs on bicentennial celebrations marking the independence of a number of countries in the region.

Overall, about 85 percent of the programming in HISTORY’s schedule comes from the U.S., with most of the rest either commissioned or co-produced. For BIO, about 95 percent comes from the U.S., with the remaining portion produced in-house or acquired. 

The Asian channels are much newer and are just beginning to commission original fare, says Michele Schofield, the director of content, programming, acquisitions and production at AETN All Asia Networks, a joint venture of AETN and Malaysia’s Astro All Asia Networks. Over the next year her company is planning to commission 36 hours of original content or about 12 hours for each of its networks in the region—HISTORY, BIO and Crime & Investigation.

Some of the first projects to be greenlit include a three- to four-hour project for HISTORY focusing on separate events in Asia that are set in 1942 during World War II; some biographies of major Asian figures for BIO; and a co-production with HISTORY U.K. for Crime & Investigation that covers a British man who murdered tourists in Singapore and Bangkok.

In February, AETN Asia announced an alliance with the Malaysian government to invest equal amounts of money in about eight hours of production by Malaysian producers for the three channels.