{"id":17414,"date":"2022-01-05T12:40:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T17:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-year-factual\/"},"modified":"2022-01-06T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T16:00:14","slug":"2021-the-year-in-factual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/","title":{"rendered":"2021: The Year in Factual"},"content":{"rendered":"

The global on-demand landscape for factual content is set to get even busier this year as CNN+, a new subscription service delivering global news, information and lifestyle fare<\/a>, is expected to roll out in the first quarter. From niche and generalist SVOD services to AVOD platforms and FAST channels, the appetite for non-scripted is booming, and there\u2019s an abundance of content on the market, forcing many distributors to course-correct and adjust their strategies<\/a>. \u201cThe macro system has changed massively,\u201d Bo Stehmeier, CEO at Off the Fence, said when discussing the new approach he has implemented at the company<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s unprecedented times. As we navigate new waters, we have to prepare for something\u2014and we don\u2019t know what it looks like or what it will be like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The launch of discovery+ at the beginning of last year as a stand-alone factual streaming service\u2014how it will work with HBO Max once the Discovery, Inc.-WarnerMedia merger<\/a> is complete remains to be seen\u2014kicked off a slew of activity in the factual nonlinear space in 2021. discovery+ quickly expanded its reach<\/a>, with launches across Europe, Canada<\/a>, Brazil<\/a>, the Philippines<\/a> and MENA<\/a>, among other markets. NBCUniversal\u2019s hayu, focused on reality TV, arrived in India<\/a> and expanded its European presence<\/a>, including through an alliance with Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group)<\/a>. WaterBear Network completed its worldwide expansion<\/a>, with Ellen Windemuth transitioning to full-time CEO of the platform. Gusto TV expanded its relationship with German-based streaming platform rlaxx TV<\/a>. History Hit, an SVOD and content platform co-founded by broadcaster and historian Dan Snow<\/a>, boosted its original programming investments. John Hendricks\u2019 Curiosity invested in the Nebula streaming platform<\/a> and landed new partnerships<\/a> to build on the presence of Curiosity Stream.<\/p>\n

With streamers retaining global rights and the never-ending wave of consolidation in the media business, securing access to quality content remains a challenge, prompting numerous distributors to ramp up their alliances with key talent. BossaNova inked its first volume catalog acquisition in a deal for more than 600 hours of content from CJZ and Greenstone<\/a>. Off the Fence, which opened its first Canadian office, secured new deals with Markham Street Films and Shark Teeth Films<\/a>. ViacomCBS entered into a talent partnership with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga<\/a>. Warner Bros. International Television Production (WBITVP) Australia and the Australian satirical newspaper The Betoota Advocate<\/em> teamed up for a slate of unscripted productions<\/a>. Boat Rocker entered into a first-look deal with Cleve Keller and Dave Noll, whose credits include the <\/a>Chopped <\/em><\/a>franchise<\/a>. Cineflix Media aligned with Jacqueline Bynon<\/a> on the new production company More to the Story Media to develop investigative true-crime series, documentaries, movies and podcasts; and Charles Tremayne for First Story Productions<\/a>. BBC Studios International Production clinched a first-look development deal with the award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gale<\/a>. Entertainment One (eOne) secured an exclusive first-look distribution deal<\/a> with Northern Ireland-based Alleycats Films. Blue Ant Studios signed a new development deal with Atlanta-based producer, writer, talent director and entrepreneur Tamra Simmons<\/a>. Jupiter Entertainment landed a first-look co-production partnership with the newly formed Bronco Productions<\/a>, created by actor, producer and podcaster Oliver Hudson and his producing partner Josh Algra. Endemol Shine North America aligned with the Academy Award-winning actress, producer, comedian and author Mo\u2019Nique to develop unscripted TV projects<\/a>. Pilgrim Media Group and Dantar Productions<\/a> teamed to develop and produce unscripted series and formats. And in excellent news for distributors looking for talent to team with, a slew of brand-new companies arrived on the scene last year, among them Telltale, launched by producer Jago Lee and business partner John Fothergill<\/a>; Harrison Land\u2019s OverUnder Content<\/a>; and Phantasticus Pictures<\/a>, established by Eric Evangelista and wildlife expert Forrest Galante. Pilgrim Media Group alum Johnny Gould set up Superluna Studios<\/a> as a joint venture with 3BMG. Claire McArdle and Rebecca Knight<\/a>, two former ViacomCBS International senior execs, set up Collective Media Group. Jesse Fawcett unveiled Fireworks Media Group<\/a>. ESPN alum Connor Schell partnered with Chernin Entertainment<\/a> to launch a new production venture for unscripted content.<\/p>\n

There was also a fair bit of M&A activity, including Herbert L. Kloiber\u2019s Night Train Media taking a majority stake in Paul Heaney\u2019s BossaNova<\/a>; Salamanda Media receiving an investment<\/a> from Channel 4\u2019s Indie Growth Fund; Dame Julie Christie buying a majority share of NHNZ<\/a> from Blue Ant Media; Bavaria Film adding Story House Productions in Berlin and Story House Pictures in Unterf\u00f6hring<\/a> to its portfolio; Asacha Media Group taking majority ownership of WAG Entertainment<\/a>; and Beach House Pictures investing in Tokyo-based Vesuvius Pictures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As has been the case in the scripted business, big-name talent remains vital in the factual business. Among the most in-demand shows last year was Oprah With Meghan and Harry<\/em><\/a>, which landed slots on broadcasters across the globe<\/a>. Discovery clinched new multiyear deals with popular personalities Bobby Flay<\/a> and Ina Garten<\/a> and aligned with Ellen DeGeneres for a slate of natural-history content<\/a>. ITV commissioned Dragonfly Film & TV and The Natural Studios to produce a new two-part series hosted by Bear Grylls<\/a>. Channel 4 ordered a new culinary competition with Jamie Oliver<\/a>. Apple TV+ enlisted Emmy Award winner Eugene Levy<\/a> for a travel series, while his son, Dan Levy, sealed a deal with HBO Max for an unscripted cooking competition series<\/a>. HBO Max also commissioned a rock climbing competition series with Jason Momoa<\/a> and revealed it was resurrecting <\/a>Project Greenlight<\/em><\/a> with Insecure\u2019s<\/em> Issa Rae on board. BBC One announced the return of the landmark <\/a>Up<\/em><\/a> series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to this year, climate change is expected to be high up on commissioners’ wish lists. Last year, BBC Studios\u2019 Natural History Unit unveiled Our Changing Planet<\/em> as the most ambitious environmental series the BBC has ever commissioned<\/a>. ViacomCBS International Studios launched a new division focused on creating social impact-driven content addressing climate, equity and health<\/a>. And this year began with Vienna-based Terra Mater Factual Studios setting plans to sustainably produce all its films as part of its strategy to go climate-neutral<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up for TV Real Daily<\/em>, TV Real Weekly<\/em> and TV Real Breaking News here<\/a>, visit TVReal.com<\/a> or follow us on @tvrealdaily<\/a> to keep up with all the latest trends and developments in the business of factual programming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World Screen explores some of the major developments in the factual business in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":17415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n2021: The Year in Factual - TVREAL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2021: The Year in Factual - TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"World Screen explores some of the major developments in the factual business in 2021.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-05T17:40:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-06T16:00:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2017\/07\/2022-01-03-2020-year-in-review.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/\",\"name\":\"2021: The Year in Factual - TVREAL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-05T17:40:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-06T16:00:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"2021: The Year in Factual\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\",\"name\":\"TVREAL\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"2021: The Year in Factual - TVREAL","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"2021: The Year in Factual - TVREAL","og_description":"World Screen explores some of the major developments in the factual business in 2021.","og_url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/","og_site_name":"TVREAL","article_published_time":"2022-01-05T17:40:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-01-06T16:00:14+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":319,"url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2017\/07\/2022-01-03-2020-year-in-review.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mansha Daswani","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mansha Daswani","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/","name":"2021: The Year in Factual - TVREAL","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-01-05T17:40:02+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-06T16:00:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/2021-the-year-in-factual\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"2021: The Year in Factual"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/","name":"TVREAL","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad","name":"Mansha Daswani","description":"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. She can be reached on mdaswani@worldscreen.com.","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/author\/mdaswaniworldscreen-com\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}