MagellanTV: A Place for the Passionate

With the vast number of streamers in the market, each must find ways to differentiate in order to attract viewers already overwhelmed with choice. One such streamer, MagellanTV, stands out from the crowd in that it was born of its founders’ true passion for documentary filmmaking and the care with which it treats its subscribers.

The factual streamer was co-founded by Thomas Lucas and Greg Diefenbach, filmmakers who have worked in the documentary business their entire careers. “We’ve always been thrilled about subjects like space science and history, and we’ve loved telling those stories,” says Diefenbach, also the managing director. “We didn’t jump in as some people who had analyzed a business opportunity per se. We saw this as a way to share our passion for documentaries with others.”

Lucas and Diefenbach saw an opportunity to curate a platform that would serve those looking for programs that covered more than the surface level of their subjects. “There are a lot of people who wanted to take a deep dive into documentaries—documentaries that are maybe a little bit nerdy, maybe a little bit geeky—that reflected their interests. And we could cater to that.”

How deep of a dive do MagellanTV’s subscribers want? Well, Diefenbach notes, “If there’s going to be a six-part series on the history of France, that’s great, and I’m sure that’ll be a wonderful series. But, if you were going to do a deeper dive into the top campaigns of Napoleon, and there was a whole show on the Battle of Lodi, that would be very MagellanTV.” As he says, “The way that we’ve approached it is with what we call ‘television worth watching.’ We’re not trying to show something that appeals to everyone, we’re trying to appeal to the passionate.”

The streamer also differentiates itself with its dedication to solving the consumers’ problem of being inundated with choice. Though the streamer has between 3,000 and 4,000 hours of content at any given time, the programs are organized into curated playlists that speak specifically to viewers’ needs, as well as to timely events. As an example, prior to the Beijing Olympics, the streamer featured a playlist focused on China, including Chinese history, political and social documentaries for viewers to find quickly. “We know what people generally like to watch as they come in, so we just try to make that easier, more accessible,” Diefenbach says.

The creation of the playlists draws on Diefenbach’s own experience searching for something to watch. With so many options on a plethora of streamers, “we’re all very dependent on the recommendations of friends,” he notes. If friends recommend a program, we’re more likely to search for that specific series, even if there are 20 other great shows at the top of a streamer’s scroll bar, because we trust them. “If we succeed in doing our job, then we’ll create a relationship with our members, and the members will have confidence that we know what they like,” he says. “So, when we recommend things to them, it’s like a friend who has recommended a show.”

In addition to the ease with which viewers can navigate MagellanTV, every program on the streamer is high-resolution. “Visual quality matters a lot to us, and we don’t parse it,” Diefenbach notes. “We don’t say, ‘You can have high-res if you pay more.’ It’s 4K for everybody, all the time.” Also, there are no ads.

Viewers clearly appreciate these facets of MagellanTV, as, in just two years of existence, it has already become available worldwide and is “fast approaching 50 percent of our members being outside of the United States,” Diefenbach says. “We get emails and comments from Saudi Arabia to Thailand, South Korea, who share our interest in the subject areas.” To cater to these audiences even more, the streamer intends to introduce more languages to ensure that everyone can watch the programs in the way that is best for them.

In the future, the streamer plans to ramp up original productions, increase its co-productions and expand into the FAST channel arena, but, most importantly, it will “double down on that relationship with the consumer,” Diefenbach notes. “We’re going to hyper-serve them with high-quality documentaries that cater to their interests.”