Passport to Adventure

While the travel industry continues to feel the effects of people trimming their budgets, the business for travel programming has been booming for distributors.

The vast majority of the general public has never even heard of places such as Snæfellsjökull, Iceland; Yap, Micronesia; Popokvil Falls, Cambodia; or Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, yet one need only turn on the TV to be transported there instantly. Travel shows have been educating and entertaining viewers for decades, taking them around the globe to discover far-flung places or to rediscover some of the beauty and splendor that’s right in their own backyard.

In its early incarnation, the travel program featured a more traditional approach to presenting a destination, be it local or exotic, with a host digging out facts and information about a particular place. While this “how-to” format for travel still has a certain appeal, many programs in the genre have gotten louder, edgier and more audacious, and so have their hosts.

Many will argue that there’s no better example of the contemporary style of an in-your-face TV travel guide than Anthony Bourdain. The chef, author and cultural connoisseur parlayed the acclaim surrounding his racy memoir Kitchen Confidential into a new career as the host of food and world-travel shows. His latest series, No Reservations, has been a smash hit for FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), which has sold it in more than 50 countries.

“Anthony Bourdain is such a strong personality,” says Jeff Tahler, FME’s senior VP of acquisitions and development. “He’s a guy you want to travel with. He’s a guy you want leading your journey. He does travel in such a way that you as a viewer take a very active role. That’s where you want to be.”

Through its representation of the Travel Channel catalogue, FME also handles sales for another standout series led by a bold personality, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. FME has notched up deals for the series, which features out-of-the-ordinary foods from various cultures and parts of the world,in some 40 territories, and counting.

“We’ve been able to market and build brands around these high-energy personalities that people really gravitate towards, like Bourdain and Zimmern,” explains Tahler. “That’s the trend that we see really working. It’s quite different than the stand-up host [we’ve seen in the past]. It’s more of an adventure now. I think that’s what people are craving. You can get a lot of that stand-up hosted type of information from the web now. You can do that research yourself, whereas five or ten years ago the information wasn’t as readily available. Now it exists, you can go online and go to the hotel’s website or a tourism website, you can get the information from there. That’s why the day of the normal stand-up host has come and gone and this is the real future.”

THE HOST WITH THE MOST
CABLEready has also found that travel shows have taken a turn toward more host-driven entertainment, where the bigger the personality, and the more expertise he or she has, the better. “Travel has really evolved beyond the traditional host being somewhere and saying ‘Here we are,’ wherever that may be,” says Sabrina Ayala, CABLEready’s VP of sales and marketing. “We have A Cook’s Tour, which does travel through food and through the really strong, vivacious personality of Anthony Bourdain. That has been one of our biggest sellers worldwide.” Another series in the CABLEready catalogue, Wine Portfolio, features the personality of Jody Ness, who’s a restaurateur and wine expert from Toronto.

“The hosts for the shows we distribute have to be experts in what they’re talking about,” says Ayala. “Jody Ness is a wine guy and he shows that through the interviews he’s doing in each episode of Wine Portfolio. Same thing with Anthony Bourdain. He knows what he’s talking about with food, so you believe him and you want to go where he’s going and experience what he’s experiencing. Damon Redfern of Karma Trekkers is an old-school travel guy, he’s a historian and he brings that to the party when you’re watching the show.”

ASK THE EXPERT
Another expert in the field is Rick Steves, the best-selling author of the classic guidebook Europe through the Back Door and more than 30 other travel books. APT Worldwide recently picked up the entire collection of Rick Steves’s HD European travel programs, Rick Steves’ Europe. Judy Barlow, the company’s VP of international sales, believes that the titles have quite an appeal for the international market.

Barlow notes that Steves’s shows feature more traditional, destination-oriented travel but include valuable information like safety tips and pointers on how to travel hassle-free. “We do see an appetite for traditional travel shows alongside the more ‘adventure’ formats,” she notes. “I think they cater to different audience demographics. It’s fun to watch other people doing unusual, sometimes dangerous, activities, but people still want the practical information of how to travel and what to see, particularly older audiences.”

Barlow adds, “These types of practical series are not just about travel, they are travel businesses unto themselves, with books, tours, apps and other ancillary merchandise, giving viewers every opportunity to use the content.”

APT’s catalogue also features a number of cross-genre travel series, such as New Scandinavian Cooking, which is a hybrid of travel and cooking, and Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge, which features photography alongside the travel.

Indeed, many shows in the travel genre crisscross into other lifestyle categories. Beyond Distribution has several in its slate, including Coolfuel Roadtrip, which adds a touch of eco to the travel vein. There’s also Free, mixing in a variety of action and adrenaline-filled sports, and Savouring the World, which is both a travel and a culinary quest for discovery. Beyond’s head of sales, Munia Kanna-Konsek, further points to The Best Job in the World as a travel series that delves into other important factual areas. The series follows Ben Southall, who beat 35,000 applicants to land the job of caretaker of a set islands on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Kanna-Konsek explains, “Not only does his new job involve travel…but he also has to learn about the ecology, wildlife, tourism and global warming.” Further hybrid-style travel series on Beyond’s slate include Stratusphere and The Holiday Show.

While Solid Entertainment’s catalogue features many programs that blur the lines of the travel genre, Richard Propper, the company’s founder and president, points out that the shows in its portfolio are more related to “destinations with a purpose.”

Uncorked! Wine Made Simple, for example, takes a look at wine culture and the wine industry, using this as the backdrop for travel adventure. “You really couldn’t talk about wine unless you talk about the places the grapes are grown and how it’s done,” says Propper. “It is traveling to these places, but it’s traveling with a purpose. The same would be true with Food Hunter. Mark Brownstein is looking to introduce the audience to really unique foods that are unheard of. Again, it’s traveling with a purpose.”

There are also newer series like What Would Darwin Think?, spotlighting eco-tourism, and Terra Antarctica, which strives to present the frozen continent in a way that viewers have never seen before.

Propper has witnessed a shift in the travel genre when it comes to technology and what the broadcasters are looking for, and often times demanding. “More and more productions are being produced in HD,” he says, “which is a good thing. Two years ago, I would say most of what we had was standard definition and some broadcasters were asking for high def. Now, it’s switched, the higher-end sales really want HD, to the point where it will prohibit a sale if it isn’t in HD.”

However, Propper is quick to note that there’s still plenty of good product out there in standard definition. “A technical complicating factor is that there are very good up-resolution services that will take a standard-def show and turn it into HD, but the broadcasters seem to be reluctant to touch them. What’s too bad about that is that they don’t realize that there are some fantastic shows that have been shot very well that look great up-res but for some reason they don’t want to touch it.”

Kanna-Konsek of Beyond is also aware of the advantages of having an HD selection for travel buyers. “Producers face very limited shelf [space] for their programs if they don’t produce and deliver in HD,” she says. “Unfortunately, being in HD does not always guarantee a better fee, but it could be the difference between sale and no sale for a title. It is definitely an advantage at present and a must-have in the very near future.”

CABLEready’s Ayala already sees HD as a must-have for locking in deals. “Travel programming, by nature of what it is, is so dependent on the visual. So HD is key. Besides the fact that it has become a requirement for so many broadcasters because so much of the world is moving towards HD in general. Discovery Channel, National Geographic and the BBC—all of which really help the travel genre grow internationally by virtue of launching networks—are dependent on HD. They set the standard for everyone else.”

Ayala also points out that the cost of producing in high definition has come down quite a bit. “Five years ago, an HD camera cost a lot more than what it costs today,” she notes.

These HD programs aren’t simply relegated to niche lifestyle networks either, as distributors have been grabbing slots for travel shows on a varied mix of networks. “We’ve actually been able to elevate some toward terrestrial television platforms,” says FME’s Tahler. “We’re feeding some great lifestyle channels in a lot of territories, but the idea is to try and expand these out. I think because of our reputation in the business and our ability to not only produce, but to acquire and work with top-flight content creators, we are in a unique position to help elevate some of these to bigger platforms.”

Tahler also points out that the genre plays well for nonlinear platforms, such as in-flight.

EYES ON THE SKIES
CABLEready, too, has seen its business with airlines flourish. “We have done a lot with in-flight, especially with our travel shows more than anything else,” says Ayala. “Airline programming is interesting because it can’t be too negative, it can’t be anything disaster-related, it has to be somewhat light and entertaining, and I think travel falls perfectly into that. That’s a huge market for us.”

The same is true for the travel programming at Beyond, says Kanna-Konsek. “In-flight is a very important part of our business and we are able to place a great deal of our travel programs with a range of carriers. For example, we have secured in-flight deals for Destinations Revealed, Lonely Planet Six Degrees, Douglas Chew Cooks Asia, Savouring the World, The Great Outdoors, Lonely Planet Bluelist Australia and Worlds Apart.”

Solid’s Propper points out that some of the license fees for in-flight even rival low-end broadcast license fees. He adds, “With the increase in digital delivery systems for in-flight, there’s been a demand for more programming. The in-flight market is a great one for travel. Year after year [airlines] are looking for that travel program with a purpose. I’m hoping for a more robust in-flight market, but I would say right now it’s been a good one for us.”

Despite the crowded marketplace, travel programming is still shoring up slots, both linear and nonlinear, and there’s no doubt that the genre will continue to evolve, technologically and with its concepts. As FME’s Tahler points out, “The travel business has its ups and downs as the economy does, but I think a good amount of people still want to see what experiences are out there and where they could possibly go and how they could do it. I really think that if you look at the next trend in the travel genre, it’s just continuing to mine the field for great talent who you want to go on these adventures with.”