Kristen Eppley on the Continued Appetite for True Crime

New Dominion Pictures built its business on factual series that first aired on U.S. cable channels, such as The New Detectives and The FBI Files. Today, as Kristen Eppley, the company’s executive VP of distribution, tells TV Real, these hits are satisfying a seemingly insatiable international appetite for true crime. These shows are not only finding homes across a variety of platforms, but they are also being turned into successful podcasts.

TV REAL: Do I remember correctly that one of your shows served as inspiration for the hit drama CSI?
EPPLEY: Yes, that was an episode from The New Detectives. Anthony Zuiker [the creator of CSI] was always nice enough to credit us. Whenever people would ask him, “Where did you get the inspiration for the show?” he would say, “My first wife was pregnant at the time, and I was outside playing basketball. She was a huge fan of The New Detectives and said, ‘You have to come in and watch this show.’” He did. It was about a Raiders cheerleader who went on a modeling job and was murdered. Three days later, he created CSI from that.

TV REAL: The New Detectives and The FBI Files were among your first hits.
EPPLEY: Yes, when New Dominion started, the first series they produced was Archaeology, and it garnered TLC its first CableACE Award. They went on to produce seasons two, three and four, but, being a young production company, it was a commission—it was work-for-hire. Their second hit series was The New Detectives. They started with three hours in season one to see how it would do, and it took off. That was a co-production with the Discovery Channel. From there, they did The FBI Files and The Prosecutors: In Pursuit of Justice. Then, we branched out to Nat Geo and did Interpol Investigates, and we really took off.

TV REAL: Starting with such quality hits, what was the strategy for growing the catalog, although you remained in non-scripted programming?
EPPLEY: Good storytelling and staying true to our roots of nonfiction and co-producing with a variety of networks. Everything is non-scripted. Our co-production partners were Discovery (TLC, Discovery Health, Velocity aka MotorTrend and the Travel Channel) and Nat Geo. We did one show for The History Channel, Chasing Warbirds. Factual has always been good for us.

TV REAL: While the scripted and kids’ businesses have been quite challenged in the last few years, has the factual programming business been steadier?
EPPLEY: Yes, definitely.

TV REAL: And demand for it remains constant?
EPPLEY: It really does. Our shows have remained evergreen, especially with all the different platforms. You may watch Netflix, I may watch Amazon and another person Hulu; everybody has something different. We have our shows up on Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi and YouTube, just to name a few. We have a few YouTube channels. We work with a partner, Little Dot Studios. They’ve done an amazing job creating our IP channels for us.

TV REAL: And the revenues on YouTube are substantial.
EPPLEY: Oh, yes, very much so. Little Dot Studios has done an amazing job with our franchise series, The New Detectives, The FBI Files and A Haunting, and with all our language versions.

TV REAL: Have production costs gone up in the non-scripted world, too? Maybe not as much as scripted?
EPPLEY: Probably not as much as scripted, maybe a little. Our last production was in 2021. AI has come a long way in the last few years, and producers are using it more and bringing the cost of reenactments down.

TV REAL: What are some of the titles that are in demand?
EPPLEY: A Haunting, The FBI Files, The New Detectives, along with the m2 titles Ice Cold Killers, Monsters and Mysteries in America, Happily Never After, Wicked Attraction and FBI Takedowns. Mike Sinclair was an executive producer at New Dominion Pictures. He worked on The New Detectives and The FBI Files. He left and started his own company, m2 Pictures. Many of his programs were co-productions with ID and the Discovery Channel. His programs fit perfectly within our catalog.

TV REAL: Most linear channels in the U.S. are seeing their viewership and ad revenues decline. Are their challenges impacting your business?
EPPLEY: Ad revenue has taken a dip across all media. It’s not impacting us too much. We are seeing ad revenue on the upswing.

TV REAL: The international interest in your catalog is big?
EPPLEY: Very big, and it’s driven by great storytelling and quality production. We put everything on the screen, and most of our shows are dubbed in French and Spanish. Having those languages really helps. And it’s not AI dubbing, it’s real dubbing, which does make a difference. I’m sure there are great AI dubbing companies, but there’s nothing like a human voice.

TV REAL: Although it’s a fragmented market, are you finding opportunities?
EPPLEY: Oh, absolutely. It’s not just selling to streamers and FAST channels. For example, we had dubbed The FBI Files in French, and a couple of years ago, we did a deal with the French company Initial Studio, which took the French audio and created a French podcast, Les dossiers du FBI, and it has 2 million streams to date. Because it was so successful, Little Dot Studios dubbed the TV programs in German and just launched the German podcast of The FBI Files, FBI Files Deutschland. It ranks among the top ten.

It’s about thin slicing—where can I take the content next?