VIDEO: View from the Top: What Do Buyers & Commissioners Want

National Geographic’s Christian Drobnyk, CuriosityStream’s Steve Burns and France Télévisions’ Thierry Mino shared their acquisition and co-production strategies at MIPDoc in a session moderated by World Screen’s Anna Carugati before each receiving a World Screen Factual Trendsetter Award.

The session, View from the Top: What Do Buyers & Commissioners Want, saw each of the three World Screen Factual Trendsetter Award winners offering up insights into how they are catering to their diverse audiences in a competitive and fragmented marketplace.

Drobnyk is executive VP of programming strategy and acquisitions at National Geographic Channels globally, with a large focus on the U.S. services. These include the flagship National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD. “It’s my responsibility to make sure that our service reflects our brand and that we perform around the world,” he said.

Mino is the deputy head of documentaries, international co-productions and acquisitions at France Télévisions. He has a team of 12 programmers responsible for prebuys and acquisitions on one side and co-productions on the other. The team acquires about 500 titles a year for France 5 and another 100 for other services within the group. The team also prebuys or co-produces 50 programs a year.

Burns serves as chief programming officer at the SVOD platform CuriosityStream, which focuses on science, history, technology, wildlife and cultural programming. The service is available in 196 countries around the world. Now in its third year, the platform has amassed about 1,800 titles. “Each year we do 120 hours of acquisitions, presales, co-pros and commissions,” he said.

At the end of the session, Carugati and Reed MIDEM’s Laurine Garaude presented each of the panelists with a World Screen Factual Trendsetter Award.