Docs to Go

October 2007

Humans have always had an innate curiosity about the world around them. Whether you’re interested in learning more about the indigenous cultures of Borneo or where to find the best street food in Thailand, watching a well-produced travel program on television is perhaps the easiest way to go.

For many years, traditional travel programs featured a “how-to” format with a host exploring a well-known destination, and offering advice to viewers on where to go, how to travel on a budget and get the most out of a specific locale.

One of the most enduring travel series is Pilot Productions’ award-winning Globe Trekker series. Now in its sixth season on PBS affiliate stations throughout the U.S., and its 13th season internationally, the series has managed to stay fresh and relevant to a global audience.

And while Globe Trekker is a testament to the tried-and-true resilience of traditional travel shows, a number of broadcasters throughout the world are looking for a more unusual take on the genre. And producers and distributors are responding to this need with all sorts of variations on the travel theme: travel with food, or with sports or even extreme travel.

“It seems the demand for travel programming has increased, as the scope of [the genre has] expanded,” observes Judy Barlow, the VP of international sales at APT Worldwide, the distribution arm of American Public Television. “Most channels are now looking for travel with a twist—things like extreme travel, eco-travel, travel targeted at boomers, travel for people with disabilities, or learning travel—which is travel mixed with nature, science, history, etc.”

Ron Alexander, the director of international sales at TeleProductions International (TPI), agrees that travel series need to have a more specialized angle. “There have been thousands of travel programs made over the years about such typical destinations as Paris and Rome and the ‘must-see’ sights at each location.” He believes that the TPI series Terra Mystica covers places that are farther off the beaten track, looking at “mysterious” travel destinations around the world such as Stonehenge, the Pyramids and Machu Picchu.

EXTENDING THE GENRE

In another departure from the traditional travel program, Canamedia’s 26×30-minute series Angry Planet follows storm chaser George Kourounis as he explores phenomena such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Commissioned by the Canadian broadcaster OLN (Outdoor Life Network) and launched at MIPTV, the series has already been sold to MTV3 in Finland and Viasat in Sweden. “Although every episode travels to a different country and a different area, it’s looking at [bigger storms and] going down inside of a volcano,” says Les Harris, the president of Canamedia. “It’s travel with a new twist, an extra element, and I think that’s going to be more and more the solution.”

Fiona Crago, the general manager of Beyond Distribution in Australia, also believes that the travel, publishing and television-production industries are responding to a demand for different sorts of travel experiences that “aren’t just cookie-cutter in nature.”

Viewers “are looking for a point of difference and an authentic experience,” says Crago. Beyond, which currently has several hundred hours of “blue-chip” travel programming in its catalogue, has found a hit in its Lonely Planet Six Degrees strand, which is currently one of the company’s top 10 best-selling titles. The strand avoids well-known tourist attractions by connecting viewers to the residents from a particular destination or city. Beyond has represented the travel strand for several years, and at MIPCOM it will be highlighting Bluelist Australia and Bluelist Around the World, which feature both celebrities and ordinary travelers sharing their top travel experiences.

There has also been a spate of programming that combines travel with a niche sport. For example, APT Worldwide recently secured the international-distribution rights to the high-definition series Equitrekking, which is the first travel series to explore the world on horseback. Hosted by an equestrian travel columnist named Darley Newman, the series ventures to remote ranches, resorts and farms throughout the world in search of the best places to ride, watch and learn about horses. “It takes you off the streets and into the woods and meadows,” says Chris Funkhouser, the VP of exchange programming and digital services at APT. You are “seeing things that you don’t see in your typical urban-focused series.”

a sporting chance

Also in the sport-and-travel category, Janson Media will be bringing the new four-hour adventure-travel series GlobeRiders: Silk Road Adventure to MIPCOM. From Turkey to China, this eight-week motorcycle journey crosses vast deserts, high mountain passes and even crowded, bustling cities.

Series that blend food and travel also continue to attract interest both in the U.S. and abroad. For example, APT Worldwide has sold New Scandinavian Cooking into the Middle East, Africa, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal, with deals pending in Ukraine, Australia and throughout Asia. “No one would cook in the remote locations these chefs head to—on the side of a fjord, out on a fishing boat, along a rocky beach and in an ice hut—but that’s why it makes great armchair travel!” says APT’s Barlow.

At MIPCOM, Pilot Productions is looking to close more deals for the 13×26-minute World Café Asia, a recently completed series on street food in Asia that was co-produced with Discovery Networks; it will also have another season of Planet Food on hand, which features hosts like Padma Lakshmi and Tyler Florence sampling and helping prepare local dishes from around the world.

Travel programming has even become more environmentally conscious. Janson Media in the U.S. has recently acquired the international rights to Richard Bangs’ Adventure with Purpose, a new eco-themed travel series for public television. Janson plans to have the series’ pilot episode, “Egypt: Quest for the Lord of the Nile” at MIPCOM. “This isn’t just a traditional travelogue with pretty pictures of luxury resorts and the usual destinations,” says Stephen Janson, the president of Janson Media. “This is an adventure travel show with a conscience, which brings viewers a better understanding of our planet.”

Susan Boshcoff, the director of production and development at re:think Entertainment, has found that the demand for travel programming remains strong outside of North America and that requests for certain strands, like youth-oriented travel, appear to be increasing in Asia and Europe. For example, re:think has a slate of adventure-driven youth travel series that include the 13×30-minute Get Outta Town!, which has been picked up by National Geographic Channels International for Turkey and India; and the 52×30-minute Alternate Routes. In Get Outta Town!, two young hosts meet up with a local teen in a city who acts as their guide and shows them the places teens like to go and the things they like to do. Alternate Routes has a similar premise, following a variety of young hosts as they backpack around the world and connect with other people their own age.

“Travel’s taken on such different meaning now that it’s not just about destination anymore,” says Boshcoff. “It can be about an interesting journey that wouldn’t necessarily have fallen into the travel category of programming five or six years ago.”

Much of the appeal of Pilot Productions’ long-running Globe Trekker is due to its hosts, who include Ian Wright, Justine Shapiro and Megan McCormick. The series proves that a travel program presented by an English-speaking host can achieve success outside of the English-speaking world. “We tend to make host-driven series, and it hasn’t stopped us from selling very well around the world,” says Ian Cross, the managing director and executive producer at Pilot Productions. “I think the [main] criteria for us is that our hosts have to have a global appeal; they’ve got to cross cultural borders.”

TO HOST OR NOT TO HOST

“It is the age-old dilemma,” says Beyond’s Crago. “Hosts will always be a challenge for non-English-speaking territories, but by the same token the host is what gives the show its personality. It’s very difficult to make a satisfying travel program without a host because the audience needs a way ‘in’ to the experience or the destination, and without another human being to guide them, the program could be extremely dull.”

TPI’s Alexander notices that there are more and more buyers, particularly in the non-English-speaking territories, who will only acquire non-hosted, narration-driven travel programs. TPI has a new package of travel programming from Arcadia Entertainment that features “a strong narration, dynamic music and, by popular request, no host.” At the same time, TPI also tries to satisfy buyers who prefer host-driven series with travel shows like Roar of the Wild and Coxy’s Big Break, featuring “dynamic Australian hosts who interact with the viewer throughout each episode.”

The highly visual nature of travel programming also translates well into high-definition, but producing high-definition travel programming is still not very feasible. “I think HD is almost essential for a travel show these days,” says Beyond’s Crago. “Unfortunately, the difficulty of financing productions means that this is not always possible to achieve.”

Despite limited budgets, producing travel programming in high-definition can be a worthwhile investment, says re:think’s Boshcoff. “If you’re going to be producing something that’s evergreen and that will have a long shelf life, then it’s definitely worth producing in HD because it means that ten years down the road, people will still be selling it.”

On the other hand, APT’s Funkhouser says that his company is “hungry” for high-definition travel programming and that the affiliate public-television stations in the U.S. are as well. He has high hopes for the new HD series Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe, which looks at cultures and wildlife across the world through the eyes of the acclaimed photographer Art Wolfe, who journeys to colorful rain forests, remote mountain peaks, important tribal gatherings and untouched habitats in places like Nepal and Madagascar. “The majority of our programming isn’t being delivered in high-definition, but many of [the titles] are wide-screen standard-definition,” says Funkhouser. “As we work towards digital transition, or the analog shutoff in February 2009 [in the U.S.], I expect that both of those formats will be increasing greatly.”

Even though the travel genre has expanded into new directions, it faces stiff competition from other lifestyle and reality programs that are filling up the schedules of broadcasters throughout the world. “You have the onset of reality [programming], which has entertained us for a long time, and a lot of travel morphed into that,” says Pilot Productions’ Cross. “Then in some cases, like in the U.K., travel morphed into holiday homes, places in the sun—and the genre became more focused on lifestyle rather than cultural exploration.”

Since 9/11, Cross has also discovered that it is becoming increasingly difficult to finance and produce travel programming, as airlines have become less willing to cut deals with film crews and many locations have become inaccessible and off-limits for filming. “It’s more dangerous; you’ve got issues with film permits and insurance issues; the world shrank in terms of the sorts of places that you could go into without taking a certain amount of risk or without accruing a much higher group cost.”

Beyond’s Crago has also found that producing and selling travel programming is not as cost-effective, considering that some dedicated cable channels such as the Travel Channel in the U.S. have been “in a state of flux” and that some of the free-to-air networks don’t have travel slots anymore. “It’s difficult to pull the necessary pre-sales together to finance the show,” says Crago. “It seems to me that producers have to be more creative than ever in terms of being able to get the necessary financing together.”

Not all distributors share the same concerns about the travel genre. “We have always distributed a lot of travel programming to the international market,” says Janson. “The genre has always been strong and will always be strong.” He adds that interest in travel programming is increasing in Eastern Europe and Asia, especially Southeast Asia, but “Western Europe remains a difficult market for traditional broadcast deals, but excellent for DVD licensing.”

Boshcoff at re:think also has a more positive perspective on the international market for travel programming. “There seems to be a renewed demand for travel programming across the board,” she says. “It was certainly oversaturated for a while globally with the cable explosion—more notably in North America—but it seems to have leveled off. The networkshave a better sense of what programs work for their demographics, and a clear idea of who their demographic is.” She cites Discovery Kids in Canada as an example. “[They] have a pretty clear idea of the kind of things they’re interested in,” with the channel picking up Get Outta Town!, and the youth adventure-travel documentary A Year on Earth.

At the same time, the travel genre is getting a boost from the growing number of new-media and IPTV platforms that are looking for content. For example, re:think has sold a variety of travel programming to the peer-to-peer-based Internet TV platform Babelgum, including Alternate Routes and Get Outta Town!

As more and more airlines have begun to install individual TV monitors into the backs of seats on planes, Canamedia’s Harris finds that in-flight entertainment is another market where he sees potential for growth. Canamedia has already secured a number of deals for niche travel and sport series like Golf the World and Skier’s World. “We deal with both airlines and with aggregators such as Spafax U.K., and in-flight companies in both Asia and the Middle East,” says Harris. Episodes of Golf the World and Skier’s World were on American Airlines, while Nice Fish, a travel series aimed at sports fishermen, is currently available on Vietnam Airlines.

Whatever challenges travel programming may face, from increased competition from other genres to rising production costs, one fact seems sure: as long as there are TV viewers who want to visit the far corners of the earth via their remote control, travel series will continue to be successful.