![\"***Image***\"](\"http:\/\/newsletters.worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/img\/2019-08-02-James-Bridges.jpg\")
In the increasingly competitive factual SVOD space, one of iwonder\u2019s key differentiators is a news feed on the homepage that highlights doc titles exploring related themes. \u201cWe don\u2019t see anyone doing this anywhere else,\u201d Bridges, iwonder\u2019s co-founder and CEO, tells TV Real Weekly<\/em>. \u201cThe philosophy came out of this idea that there has to be pretty close overlap between people who are interested in what\u2019s going on in the world and people who are interested in high-quality documentaries. So we thought, let\u2019s have a curated newsfeed\u2014not an open firehose\u2014that comes across your home page presenting you with [documentaries] that are related to or adjacent to what is going on in the news, just to give you deeper context. For example, Trump and Kim meet in Vietnam and the associated docs are on Vietnam\u2019s tech boom, Trump\u2019s relationships in Indonesia and the assassination of Kim Jong-un\u2019s half-brother in Kuala Lumpur. A Harvey Weinstein story can be associated with a documentary about the underrepresentation of women in positions of power. You can do it with climate change, gun control, Russia. These are ongoing themes that we license and curate content around. There are not many household-name documentaries out there, but there are thousands of great, quality documentaries. So [the newsfeed] helps give people a way into discovery of the catalog.\u201d<\/p>\nBridges says he and the team are plotting a thoughtful expansion plan for the iwonder SVOD service around the world. \u201cWe do ultimately want to be global. Rather than doing the shotgun blast around the world in all markets, we wanted to launch in three markets with a real focus, and with a lighter content proposition than what we\u2019ll ultimately have so we can learn what people are watching, commission and license more of that and refine both the product and the content offering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consumers in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, Bridges says, have \u201call demonstrated that they will pay for content. In most of these markets, people have more than two SVOD subscriptions already. And then once we have tested and learned we will expand to Western Europe and Canada towards the end of 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a start-up with a limited marketing budget, iwonder is relying on social media and word of mouth to draw in customers, Bridges explains. “We\u2019ll do some digital marketing in all the obvious places. But our research and anecdotal experience tell us you tend to hear about great documentaries from people around a dinner table. We said, How can we harness that? Part of that is allowing people to share clips and ![\"***Image***\"](\"http:\/\/newsletters.worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/img\/2019-08-02-iwonder.jpg\")
trailers from the service directly to other people. Part of it is building a really good community of doc lovers in all of the markets that we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The platform currently has about 1,000 hours of content from across the documentary spectrum. “iwonder matches trending news with real-life stories about the people and events shaping current affairs, music, pop culture, religion, sports, nature, war, history, politics, science, technology and much more,\u201d Bridges says. \u201cOur key focus is on quality, so a majority of our feature docs are festival selections or award winners.\u201d Bridges says he hopes to get the slate up to more than 2,000 titles by the end of 2019. \u201cWe\u2019re holding back some of the content budget so we can refine, test and deliver what we think people are looking for. Similarly, we don\u2019t have all the features on the product that we\u2019ll have in six months. A lot will be dictated by customer feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n
The platform has started offering more short-form content, \u201cwhich drives great snacking consumption, particularly on mobile.\u201d<\/p>\n
As iwonder expands, partnerships with telcos, pay-TV operators and device manufacturers will be crucial, Bridges says. \u201cWe want to get to as many people as we possibly can. Telcos are very hungry for content. The traditional pay-TV platforms all now have digital offerings, so we don\u2019t have to have a linear channel in order to have conversations with them. And then all of the direct-to-consumer devices. Those are conversations that we are very keenly pursuing. We think we fill a gap in the market with this combination of documentary movies, documentary series and current-affairs shows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James Bridges, co-founder and CEO of iwonder, talks to World Screen Newsflash about the documentary and current-affairs content platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":13171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,69],"tags":[2897,3502],"class_list":["post-13170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-iwonder","tag-james-bridges","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n