TVREAL
TVF International is grappling with the same challenges as everyone else in the unscripted market—budget constraints, rising production costs and inflation. That being said, the company is bolstered by its wide array of natural history, true-crime, science and current affairs programs, and is continuing to experiment with financing models to help new projects get off the ground. Poppy McAlister, head of TVF International, tells TV Real Weekly about what is working best right now in the unscripted space and where the biggest areas of opportunity lie.
TV REAL: What trends are you seeing in the factual space lately?
MCALISTER: Producers have two choices when it comes to TV trends. You can try to keep up with the zeitgeist by braving something new and testing out a new format—it’s risky, and there’s no guarantee of international sales, but it can pay off (don’t we all wish we’d come up with The Traitors?). Or, you can stick to what you know. At TVF, in our 40-year history, we have never noted a lack in demand for traditional factual genres like science, history, wildlife and world affairs, which still have loyal audiences on linear and online. For commissions and presales, there is a particularly strong appetite for documentaries that are tied to an anniversary, uncover groundbreaking new evidence or offer a fresh take on an internationally recognized story.
TV REAL: More specifically, what is working best in the natural history space?
MCALISTER: Blue-chip, pure wildlife series with no on-screen presenters are in high demand internationally. Wildlife buyers want to see programming that highlights unseen elements of the natural world—new animal behaviors, predatory behaviors, rare species or new technology used to capture them. High-quality CGI used to imagine dinosaurs and ancient creatures is also in demand.
TVF partnered with bilibili on a landmark blue-chip wildlife series, China’s Wild Secrets, which exemplifies what the international market is looking for when it comes to wildlife and natural history programming. From giant panda cubs and Siberian tigers to king cobras struggling to survive in the rainforest, the series explores some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. Using an entirely local Chinese crew, the series also has unprecedented access to remote locations.
TV REAL: What about in the true-crime genre? What are you hearing from broadcasters about what they’re looking for?
MCALISTER: True crime is an increasingly saturated market, and feedback from our buyers tends to be that cases should be well-known in their territory to capture their audiences. High-profile crimes and cases involving celebrities tend to perform best in the space.
Otherwise, to stand out, stories need to be “stranger than fiction” and have twists and turns throughout the narrative that make a program feel bingeable and keep viewers coming back. Contemporary relevance also helps to cut through, be it new evidence, an anniversary or a retrial. Cults and supernatural themes have enduring popularity, as does law enforcement. Our true-crime investigation series The Negotiators, which tracks real-life hostage negotiators, has been extremely popular and sold to more than 50 territories globally.
A sensitive approach to storytelling for premium series and documentaries is important. There is a great deal of interest in true crime, but audiences don’t want to feel like they are participating in the exploitation of victims and their families, and neither do buyers.
TV REAL: How are you finding the overall state of commissioning for unscripted right now?
MCALISTER: There’s no sugar-coating the matter—broadcaster budgets across licensing, prebuys and commissions are constricted, particularly if you take into account inflation and rising production costs. But in most cases, buyers are understanding and aren’t actively proposing lower rates. It’s not as though license fees are falling, it is more that there are fewer opportunities to go around, and there’s much more competition.
We are noticing that volume acquisitions are less in demand by commissioners, which has an impact on genres such as lifestyle, factual entertainment and ob-docs. Even on the acquisitions side, broadcasters increasingly opt to relicense older series of tentpole franchises that they have already aired and localized because they can rely on these to rate well. In the current climate, where advertiser revenue is declining, it’s much easier to renew rather than take a risk on new IP, particularly at the prebuy stage.
TV REAL: What opportunities are FAST and AVOD able to provide for new and library titles?
MCALISTER: FAST and AVOD models are developing rapidly, and while it is not always easy to predict which titles will have success, broadly, we have noted that archive history, paranormal, science, sex and relationships, royals and celebrity scandals perform well online. What all these genres have in common is that they are highly clickable and have a binge-worthy quality that is ripe for online viewing.
TV REAL: What financing models are you using to get projects off the ground? What is the role of distributors in financing and packaging projects today?
MCALISTER: It is much rarer nowadays to finance a production budget through a single commissioning broadcaster. In the U.K., many producers are looking to co-produce with territories such as Australia and Canada, where there are government funding bodies and tax rebates to alleviate the strain on producer investment.
Prebuys and “acquimissions” are increasingly common with buyers who are seeing their own commissioning budgets strained. Ensuring stories have the international scale and relevance to tick boxes for multiple commissioning broadcasters is essential these days.
Distributors are also becoming increasingly vital when piecing together production financing across multiple territories, and investing themselves. TVF operates extensively with presales, co-productions, international re-versions and deficit financing through distribution advances. When bringing ideas to TVF for presales, producers should be able to present a strong case for why their story needs to be told now and why their project is a must-have. In the current market, buyers will only commit to presales on a story they don’t want to risk missing out on. For presale pitches, we like to see a developed treatment, a rough finance plan and ideally, a sizzle or some sample footage.
TV REAL: What do you see as the biggest areas of opportunity for the factual space over the next year or two?
MCALISTER: We have found there are more opportunities than ever for commissions and acquisitions across specialist factual genres like history, science, wildlife and current affairs, so long as the content is premium and told on an international scale.
There is still a place for one-off documentaries, but in order for broadcasters to really invest, docs need to have the X factor. To compete against major formats and popular scripted series, they need buzzworthy, clickable titles, and they need to tap into the news cycle or the zeitgeist. One good example is our world affairs documentary Arming the Arctic, commissioned by TVF and RTL Germany for ntv, which explores urgent and rising geopolitical tensions in the Arctic.
