Tom McDonald Talks Nat Geo Programming Strategy

The second edition of the TV Real Festival kicked off today with a keynote conversation with Tom McDonald, executive VP of global factual and unscripted content at National Geographic.

McDonald weighed in on what’s guiding his overall programming strategy at Nat Geo for global originals. “We want content which is gripping, entertaining and thrilling,” he said in his keynote conversation with TV Real’s Mansha Daswani that you can watch here. “What makes us distinct is the prism for which we look at everything: Do those ideas deepen one’s understanding of the world or enhance our appreciation of the world?”

McDonald is keen to find content that “speaks to your head and to your heart. Ideas that may be edge-of-your-seat and thrill you and entertain you but that inspire you to think about the world in a different way. I think producers find that a really helpful filter. We’re quite a broad church, but that guiding mantra helps narrow down how we select.”

On adjusting to the new economics of the business and the volume of content consumers have access to, “we’ve taken a fewer, bigger, better approach over the last couple of years. Rather than try and maintain a certain number of hours, which feels like a linear mindset, we’re focusing on having a set of tentpoles that feel like they’re going to stand out on Disney+. We’re taking a streaming-first approach. It’s still great that we’ve got the linear channels around the world, but fundamentally I’m thinking about it’s forever home, which is Disney+, and about ideas that we think are going to pop on Disney+, where you’re next to Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and those other incredible brands. We’re taking a less-is-more approach while maintaining big ambition. It would be dangerous to go the other way, which is make lots and lots of hours of television. This is less about making lots and lots of hours and more about getting behind a smaller number of titles than we were making five or ten years ago. Fewer shows but higher impact.”

Co-pros are rare under McDonald’s remit. “What I’m principally looking for is all rights on streaming—in perpetuity is maybe up for negotiation. National Geographic International will commission local programming for particular countries. On my slate, it’s global, no co-production, but there are pockets within Nat Geo where there’s opportunity for local programming where the rights position would be different.”

The conversation then moved to the importance of name recognition in premium factual today.

“The question of discoverability is probably the thing that keeps everyone who works in unscripted awake at night. There are different ways of drawing an audience to your show that is not just talent. Name recognition more broadly is important.”

He referenced Nat Geo’s 9/11: One Day in America, made in 2021 to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack and one of the platform’s most successful originals of the last few years. “It does not have an A-list talent attached to it, but that’s an anniversary that is globally well-known, it was a landmark approach to that series, multiple episodes, bigger than has ever been done before—it felt like the definitive take, and that garnered an enormous audience. We’ve recently had a special called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection. This genuinely shows you visually the Titanic in a new way.”

There are lots of A-list talent series in the mix too, with National Geographic aligning with the likes of Stanley Tucci, David Blaine and Chris Hemsworth. “There’s a built-in recognition of the star.”

Nat Geo also had success with “lassoing of Pixar and Disney IP” in projects like A Real Bug’s Life, McDonald said.

“It needs to have a degree of name recognition in order for the audience to feel, Oh, that’s something I want to watch, or, I’m willing to give it my time. But then the show needs to offer a surprise, a new take, a different iteration, feel fresh and original. I’m unafraid of going back to stories where it feels like they may have been told before on television as long as it’s a new way of telling them.”

Further, he said, the use of A-list talent has to feel authentic. “We don’t work with talent for the sake of it. It’s not as easy as saying, This person’s very famous and they’d like to do this show with Nat Geo. We look for the perfect mix of talent, what the talent’s known for and then the talent’s passions and knowledge. The audience senses an authentic connection between the talent and the subject.”

McDonald then talked about the evolution of natural history since the boom time of 2019 and the early pandemic era amid the intensification of the streaming wars.

“There’s a universal quality to natural history; it goes beyond language barriers, it doesn’t feel culturally specific. In every country around the world, there’s a passion for the natural world. Circa 2020/2021, it felt like every single streamer and broadcaster was in the natural history game. Inevitably, it now feels the waves are retreating. It’s a genre that we’ve always been pioneering in. We are not following trends. It feels core to our brand and identity.”

As part of that pioneering spirit, “We are trying to do natural history that feels much more playful, mischievous, has a lighter tone and sensibility that doesn’t need to feel like it’s the voice of God serious. Giving the mantle of natural history to Awkwafina and Ryan Reynolds feels interesting. They aren’t necessarily the David Attenborough, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks’ voices—the trusted voices of serious program-making.”

Meanwhile, The Americas on NBC with Hanks, which McDonald had a hand in from his previous role at the BBC, was done “without loads of whistles and bells, but just using the best cinematographers, the most amazing technology, so you’re seeing it in new ways. I love its simplicity. It isn’t trying to be high concept, it’s not trying to be clever. There was an era where people were like, How do you mash up X and Y and Z to create something completely different? What’s great about The Americas is it trusts in the simplicity of great storytelling.”

Contemporary history is also key to Nat Geo. “We’re a brand where people trust us to tell their stories,” McDonald said. “We’ve built a body of series that give a voice to ordinary people’s incredible testimony. In a world which can feel quite riven and partisan, we provide a platform for whatever your political stripes, whatever your world view, you feel like National Geographic will do your story justice. That feels like an incredible privilege. I want to continue doing more of those,” referencing docs on 9/11 and the deadly 2004 tsunami that impacted 14 countries.

McDonald is also keen to find subjects that aren’t necessarily “events of tragedy. Are there stories that are more uplifting or about cultural movements or moments that don’t involve tragic death? Something with a lighter tone but still capturing a moment in time.”

McDonald has also seen keen interest in new evidence and discoveries. “If we go back to original source material and documentary evidence, how can we genuinely shed new light on history rather than just retelling it using actors or CGI? That feels quite exciting in terms of history.”

And there is the impact of AI, with Nat Geo’s theatrical doc Endurance using “AI lightly to bring back some of the voices of the people on the Endurance ship, using their real words but AI to enhance their voices. There’s a world in which you can use AI as a tool to bring people back to life in a way that feels respectful, that isn’t making up things they said, that is still incredibly journalistic, but is bringing their voice back to life.”

True crime and investigative, meanwhile, has moved into the spheres of “scams and deceit that don’t always involve murder,” McDonald said. The Theranos story is the type of subject matter that could work well for Nat Geo, he noted. “Stories about science, but also wrongdoing.”

McDonald then weighed in on how NatGeo is using its extensive social media presence. We remain the number one brand on Instagram. That means you can leverage the power of social in different ways. You can use it simply as a marketing tool—we put our trailers, clips, we do all of the things you would expect from a brand like ours to pop things on social. But more interesting to me is when we’ve been brave in terms of putting out content early from a forthcoming show to see how it performs on social.”

Of note, a clip from Secrets of the Penguins featuring “extraordinary behavior that’s never been filmed before” was released on social a year before the show premiered. “That footage was viewed over 160 million times. It’s our best-performing piece of footage ever on social. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t instantly driving audiences to Secrets of the Penguins. It was driving audiences to our social feeds, where I want the young generation to be experiencing extraordinary content from Nat Geo and hopefully building an affiliation with the brand.”

Similarly, a clip from Limitless with Chris Hemsworth “did incredible numbers on social, generated news headlines, gave us lots of press—that felt like a real win.”

Social is also being used to trial new talent, such as the YouTube series Superskilled with Eva zu Beck. “She has built a really strong following via National Geographic YouTube and social. That doesn’t instantly mean that we’re going to make a Disney+ series with Eva, but it does mean that we are building a next generation of talent via our social channels. There are opportunities in social to reach different types of audiences, younger audiences. It’s a great place for experimentation, building your audience, and it makes the world that we’re operating in feel bigger, which is great.”

The slate across platforms, “underpinned by Nat Geo principles and values about appreciating the planet and deepening our understanding of the world, proves that that doesn’t limit us in form or tone. We’re probably at our most expansive right now. You go from a landmark documentary film with David Attenborough, launched in the same month as Underdogs with Ryan Reynolds, the Deadpool of natural history. The fact that we can operate at both ends of that spectrum while still retaining National Geographic values feels great.”

And there are more big swings coming, including a Pompeii doc with Tom Hiddleston and Meet the Planets with Maximum Effort and the BBC Studios Science unit. “In a landscape that sometimes feels like it in retreat or that people are playing it safe, it’s great that we’re still able, as a brand, to take big risks and swings.”