MagellanTV on Streaming Trends in the Factual Space

MagellanTV co-founders Greg Diefenbach and Tom Lucas talk to TV Real about recent trends in the streaming factual space and what the platform is working on to keep pace with them.

Ever since its co-founding by Diefenbach and Lucas, MagellanTV has prided itself on standing out with high-end, in-depth factual programming to appeal to those with real interest in its core genres: history, science, nature and true crime. “We’re always looking for really in-depth programming in those areas,” says Diefenbach, also managing director of the streamer. “Really high-quality and informative. Maybe more informative and more in-depth than you might normally see on other platforms.”

Lucas adds onto that, noting, “In-depth to us usually means a story well told. This is the key to factual programming in our view. The ability of these genres to tell stories about the real world. These stories are going to be filled with characters, conflict, resolutions, all the basic elements that attract audiences to great television.”

In particular, MagellanTV has a robust space science catalog, which is underscored by the recent launch of Space Science Now, a MagellanTV-fueled FAST channel. “Space science is a huge area of interest right now in the world,” Diefenbach asserts.

This is in part due to the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which went to space at the end of 2021 and began sharing photos with the public in July 2022. “We’ve been concentrating a little bit on what’s coming out of James Webb because it promises the most radical reorientation of our perspectives on the universe, and people sense that,” Lucas says.

“We’re really living through one of the greatest moments of scientific discovery in human history,” Diefenbach adds. “And fortunately—Tom’s too modest to say it, but I’ll say it—Tom is a very successful and prolific space science filmmaker. We are blessed with having very strong space science originals on MagellanTV.”

Those originals include Planet Hunting with the James Webb Space Telescope, executive produced by Lucas, which was the platform’s best performing title of 2022, reaffirming the audience’s interest in the genre. Though MagellanTV does have strong in-house production for space science—which also includes Search for the Cosmic Dawn and Other Earths: The Search for Habitable Planets—Diefenbach notes that their “appetite outstrips our capacity to produce, so we’re acquiring the best in space science from filmmakers and distributors all over the world, not just MagellanTV.”

“Whether it’s the launch of James Webb or Artemis, it’s a very exciting time in that area, and the public feels it and they want to learn more,” Diefenbach says. “They need programming in service of that curiosity, that passion that they feel.”

MagellanTV is happy to provide anything its audience is passionate about, in fact, including strong history programming. “MagellanTV has developed a reputation as one of the strong platforms in the VOD space for big history,” Diefenbach says, noting that they’re always looking for more. “There’s a lot of history that says, ‘this happened, and then that happened,’ but you need that strong story arc. You need to have all the elements of drama that support the strong history.”

Lucas says he is on the lookout for more ancient history titles in particular, as it is an area that audiences have found compelling lately. “They just love the stories of pharaohs and discoveries of the ancient world,” he says. “It’s epic. There’s always something to learn.” A series that has been on the rise with audiences recently is Maya: Ancient Metropolis, according to Lucas. “It’s a series of reconstructions of ancient Mayan cities, where they dissect the architecture and the engineering and the geopolitical reasons for building cities the way they have.”

Whether space science, history or another genre, MagellanTV is always looking to respond to its audience. “We love responding to the world around us and to the opportunities that come our way or that we nose out,” Lucas says. He teases an upcoming series that is “a very high-end dissection of the new cartography that is being used to understand the underlying dynamics of global warming and climate change. It’s very alarming, but it’s quite beautiful and action-packed, you might say, for a science show.”

With that sneak peek, it is clear that MagellanTV will continue to service its audience and respond to the world in the new year. “The perspectives of humanity are changing constantly,” Lucas says, and MagellanTV will continue to explore them in its ever-growing catalog.