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Everything about content Fall 2026

New ways of B:246 mm making true T:240 mm crime pay MacDonald on A+E’s coveted catalogue

WBD’s Italian channels still a key focus

Lady Mitsuko Rising Sun, Turning Tides 52 min., 45 min., 25 min.

Java and Bali The Element of Surprise 52 min., 45 min.

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10.09.26 11:24

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel21 International | Fall 2026

Cults, coercion and the internet age True crime remains the most commissioned doc subgenre worldwide, but broadcasters and streamers are moving beyond murder mysteries towards cults, online manipulation and the psychology behind the crime. By Louise Bateman

rue crime remains one of the most stable commissioned genres, but behind that consistency is a growing shift beyond the straightforward murdermystery whodunit towards fraud in the digital age, the role of social media and trying to understand the criminal mind. According to London-based entertainment market research company Ampere Analysis, true crime remains the key subgenre within documentary content commissioned worldwide, representing 16% of documentary commissions in 2025, up slightly from 15% in 2024. Tracking first-run titles across 22 major media markets, including renewals, Ampere counted 632 new crime documentary commissions last year, ahead of art and culture documentaries in second place with 521. The UK and US remain the key territories for first-run true crime commissions, as was the case in 2024. “The broad trend is a lot of consistency and stability,” says Rahul Patel, principal analyst at Ampere. “Crime as a subgenre of documentary remains the most common subgenre among commissioned documentary content.” Examine more closely, though, and the data shows murder – long considered the core of true crime – is not being served up in the same quantities as it once was. Between 2020 and 2024, the share of all first-run crime documentaries commissioned that related to murder or death fell from 38.1% to 32.5%. Fraud, including scam artists, grew over the same period from 1.6% to 2.7%, and drugs-related content rose from 2.8% to 4.5%. Two other subgenres, abuse

Prime Video’s Hair Fetish Killer

and online/social media, also grew, from 3.2% and 0.4% respectively in 2020 to 4.1% and 3.3% in 2023, although each gave back some of those gains in 2024. On screen that shift is evident through an increasing number of stories that use a crime as a route into cults, coercive control, digital manipulation and the psychology of perpetrators and victims alike. The traditional whodunit is not disappearing, however. It remains the bedrock of Canadian group Blue Ant Media’s true crime offering, says Barnaby Shingleton, senior VP of acquisitions, who notes that long-running crime series “remain the heart of many crime channels and continue to do extremely well.” The commercial imperative, he argues, is “to protect that base, while adding fresh storytelling techniques, premium storylines and sometimes crime-adjacent programming around it.” Even so, Shingleton notes the genre is expanding beyond its traditional boundaries, driven largely by online life, though he stops short of describing cybercrime as a genre unto itself. “Social media, dating apps and online life have provided a new way to commit crimes and it’s only natural for us to be following those crimes themselves. But it doesn’t necessarily create the crime, it’s a new manifestation of it,” he explains. A case in point is Livestream Killer, Killer a two-part series 

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Social media, dating apps and online life have provided a new way to commit crimes and it’s only natural for us to be following those crimes themselves. But it doesn’t necessarily create the crime, it’s a new manifestation of it. Barnaby Shingleton

Blue Ant Media

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel21 International | Fall 2026

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We are trying to look at crime through a slightly different prism. Women killing allows us to explore victim stories through different perpetrators and allows us to then unpick relationships in a different way.

on the Blue Ant slate for Hearst Networks UK’s Crime+Investigation Miles Jarvis channel, produced by Longwave Woodcut Media Studios. It explores the murder of perpetrators and allows us to then unpick relationships in Natalie McNally in Northern Ireland by her boyfriend, YouTuber Stephen McCullagh, who used a calculated, pre- a different way.” Psychology runs through most of Woodcut’s output, recorded six-hour gaming livestream to fabricate a false alibi. “It was digital forensics that ultimately exposed that according to Jarvis: “It’s about understanding human deception and that subsequently resulted in the solving of behaviour and the impact of it.” Distributed by Sphere Abacus, Hair Fetish Killer, centring the crime,” says Shingleton. Victim-focused storytelling is another area of growing on an 18-year Italian investigation and recently launched on importance, Shingleton adds, noting that women make Amazon-owned Prime Video in the UK and Ireland, is built up the largest proportion of crime audiences and that this around the twists and turns that have become characteristic now shapes how Blue Ant approaches acquisitions and of the storytelling on global streamers, says Jarvis. Internet-enabled crime is another strand gaining commissioning. “There are plenty of examples in the UK that five or six traction with commissioners, driven partly by an ambition years ago would’ve been produced very differently, but are to reach younger viewers and partly by a desire to reflect now being produced in a particular way, which is partly contemporary reality. “Over the past four or five years, around the female gaze and also partly around just respect broadcasters have certainly been actively asking for more social media-based crime,” says Jarvis. for the victims,” he says. Within Woodcut’s returning series Murdered at First Sight, True crime has always been UK indie Woodcut Media’s core genre, but how it tells those stories is shifting, says also distributed by Sphere Abacus, cases such as that of Miles Jarvis, its director of creative partnerships. He points Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old who was groomed online and to its flagship title World’s Most Evil Killers – now running murdered and whose family has continued to campaign for to 11 seasons and one of the UK’s longest-running true awareness, show how modern, digitally driven crime stories crime shows – as evidence that ethical, victim-focused are being woven into established brands. US studio Fifth Season has long been associated with storytelling has been central to B-Corp-certified Woodcut’s high-end scripted event series, but the company is quietly approach from the start. Woodcut is diversifying with the recent expansion of the building a presence in true crime documentary too. Kate Most Evil franchise, the 10-part World’s Most Evil Women. Laffey, senior VP of acquisitions at Fifth Season, is clear Made with LA-based Radial Entertainment, which is the company has no interest in the traditional procedural distributing the series in the US, and with Woodcut handling format: “It’s more about asking why people commit these crimes.” the rest of the world, Jarvis says the series shifts the dial. Its catalogue currently sits at roughly 80% scripted and “It’s still victim-focused, but it’s actually looking at the relationship between female killers, rather than the male- 20% unscripted, and Laffey is explicit about what she driven violence that, sadly, we know historically dominates needs to see before boarding a new factual project: “We are looking for serialised true crime rather than just a onecoercive and violent relationships,” he explains. “That’s a good example of how we are trying to look off. It’s got to have twists and turns and the hooks and the at crime through a slightly different prism. Women killing cliffhangers at the end of the episode.” Global relevance matters too. “[We need] stories that  allows us to explore victim stories through different

Bad Host: Hunting the Couchsurﬁng Predator for Sky Docs

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: True crime

Channel21 International | Fall 2026

WBD characterises docs such as A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read as ‘docbusters’

Death of the Pastor’s Wife investigates claims of coercive control and abuse

feel really distinctive but globally relevant as well, because if the stories are too local, it’s quite constraining,” Laffey says. Two recent titles illustrate that direction. Death Cap: The Mushroom Murders follows the investigation in Australia into Erin Patterson, who was convicted of murdering three of her relatives with a poisoned meal. Coproduced with Dreamchaser and Den of Martians for Aussie streamer Stan, the series secured distribution deals in key territories shortly after its release, including with CNN and Netflix. The second show, Bad Host: Hunting the Couchsurfing Predator, made with Lightbox for Sky Docs, told a different but equally compelling story of women targeted by a male predator while couch-surfing and who ultimately came together via social media to expose him. Fifth Season presold the series to Hulu in the US. Diana Carter, Crime+Investigation’s director of originals and talent, says she takes a similarly boutique approach, describing her commissioning style as one that tells “stories through people often led by talent or interesting voices thoughtfully chosen.” Alongside Livestream Killer, Killer the 2026 slate, totalling around 26 hours, includes Ross Kemp: Lost Boys, Deadly Men and Rob Rinder: The Crime I Can’t Forget, which aired in June and revisited the unsolved 2005 murder of Lucy Hargreaves in Liverpool. Nowhere is the pivot away from pure procedural more deliberate than at ID, the US cablenet credited with setting off the true crime documentary trend two decades ago. It continues to air long-running franchises including Homicide Hunter: American Detective and On the Case with Paula Zahn, both of which returned with new seasons in April, but increasing competition in the true crime space pushed ID towards what it calls a “docbuster” strategy in 2025. “We knew we had to set ourselves apart,” says Jason Sarlanis, president of TNT, TBS, TruTV, ID & HLN, linear and streaming at Warner Bros Discovery, about the move to focus on fewer, bolder titles built around cultural moments rather than volume. “Hence we coined the term docbuster.” 2025’s The Fall of Diddy, A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read and Aaron Hernandez & the Untold Murders of Bristol were, he says, “three of our biggest documentary moments of the year, each tapping into major cultural conversations.” The titles are based less on solving a crime than unpacking the power, celebrity and psychology behind it. Recent 2026 premieres in the docbuster space include the celebrity-focused, crime-adjacent four-part documentary OJ Unseen: Exploitation of Evil, about the ill-fated hiddencamera prank show Juiced, in which he featured, and Unmasking a Monster: Aileen Wuornos, which uses advanced digital replication and VFX techniques to revisit the life, crimes and eventual capture of Wuornos. In another case where true crime is framed beyond the

straight murder hunt, Boom Box: Beats & Betrayal is a fourpart series that debuted with the launch of HBO Max in the UK in March, examining from different angles the case of a London recording studio whose links to aspiring local rappers became entangled in a web of illegal gun sales. “Essentially it is a very ambitious and creative approach to telling a story about a recording studio from multiple perspectives,” explains James Rogan, creative director at the show’s producer Rogan Productions, which made it with London-based creative agency Armoury. Apple TV, which still commissions only a handful of true crime titles compared with its streaming rivals, turned to Lightbox, producer of documentaries such as Tina for HBO and Disney+’s Devil in My DMs, to make Twisted Yoga, its first foray into cult-focused content. The three-part series, which premiered globally in March, examines a global tantric yoga movement that became the subject of serious criminal allegations against its founder, Gregorian Bivolaru. “[Apple] put a lot of trust in us to do it in a way that would appeal to Apple’s audience,” says executive producer Suzanne Lavery. “So we did go to great pains not to make Kate Laffey it salacious; it’s a much more psychological endeavour.” Netflix’s top true crime titles of 2025, among them Sean Combs: The Reckoning, American Murder: Gabby Petito, American Manhunt: OJ Simpson and Oscar-nominated The Perfect Neighbour, lean as heavily on psychology and celebrity as on the crime itself. The streamer continues to explore the same territory in 2026, with titles including cult-focused four-parter Trust Me: The False Prophet, from Participant and Ark Media, released in April, and Death of the Pastor’s Wife, which premiered in August and examines allegations of coercive control and abuse in the life and death of Mica Miller. US cablenet A&E, meanwhile, is seeking to stand out with Crime in Progress, which is made in-house by A+E Factual Studios and launched earlier this year. Told exclusively through raw body cam, dash cam and surveillance footage, each episode follows the entire arc of an investigation, capturing crimes as they unfold in real time, with no reenactments or narration. It’s designed to be a deliberately visceral approach that contrasts with the polished true crime stories coming out of premium streamers. “It’s a 360-degree look at the whole criminal justice system,” says Elaine Frontain Bryant, executive VP of programming for US networks Lifetime, A&E and LMN. “It’s messy but it’s OK that it’s messy. It feels very real. We are filling a niche that not everybody else does.”

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CONTENT STRATEGIES: WBD Italy

Channel21 International | Fall 2026

Bake-Off Italia

WBD’s Italian job S

cience, TLC, ID and the other Discovery linear channels used to be staple buyers for the international factual community. The past decade, however, has seen the company tied up in a series of megamergers, first bringing the Scripps family of cablenets, such as Travel Channel and HGTV, into its fold, then pairing with Warner Bros to become Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). It is now in the process of being bought by Paramount Skydance. These deals have created commissioning slowdowns or outright droughts, and the focus has increasingly turned towards streaming, first with Discovery+, then with the ever-changing brand of HBO Max (still called that at press time) and in the future whatever emerges when that is paired with Paramount+. The loss of all those global pay TV channels commissioning original content has had a damaging effect on independent factual producers and distributors that used to rely on selling to Discovery networks in 180plus territories for their bread and butter. But there are still regions of the world where linear plays a huge role for the company. In Italy, for example, WBD operates five linear channels – Nove, DMax

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As Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros Discovery edges closer, the latter’s five Italian linear channels remain a core commissioning and acquisitions priority, says Isabelle Oliphant. By Clive Whittingham

Italy, Real Time, Turbo and Discovery – which compete with the local Sky and Mediaset offerings and are very much open for commissioning and acquisitions business. “Nove and Real Time are the flagship channels and they get high ratings and do well for us; it’s a good example of how linear TV is still a big driver for the business,” says Isabelle Oliphant, senior acquisitions manager for WBD, who focuses primarily on acquiring for the Italian market. “There is a central acquisitions team and each of us has regions we look after,” Oliphant says. “My primary focus is Italy, but then I also have a wider remit of looking for titles that can work across several key territories, which comes from a different budget. We each have a local budget specifically for the region and also titles that will work across several key regions.” The channels are populated

When the world is a crazy place, [viewers want] pieces that look back in history to see how we got where we are and how history repeats itself. Isabelle Oliphant WBD

through output deals with WBD nets in the US and with local commissions, such as cooking format adaptation Bake-Off Italia, which airs on Real Time and is now in its 14th season, produced by Banijay Italia. Other unscripted format adaptations include First Dates, now in its 10th season on Real Time and produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production Italy, and Seven.One International’s hit Married at First Sight, which saw a four-season renewal in 2025 for Banijay Studios Italy and Nonpanic. The third piece of the content jigsaw is third-party acquisitions, which is where Oliphant comes in: shopping for a range of unscripted

titles that could be documentaries, lifestyle or entertainment as well as natural history. Formats acquired include oneoffs, series and shorts, either 27- or 52-minute episodes with occasional feature docs longer than that acquired through coproductions or pre-buys. “Real Time skews female and we have a lot of titles from TLC in the US there as well as the local Italian commissions,” Oliphant explains. Elsewhere she’s heavily focused on anniversaries, music and topical or current affairs. Her recent pickups include Windfall Films’ space exploration piece Artemis II: To The Moon & Back, and Days That Shocked The World: Fukushima, which comes from UK distributor BossaNova Media. “Anniversary pieces are universal in their appeal,” she adds, highlighting the Fukushima project, which marked the 15th anniversary of the nuclear disaster. “When the world is a crazy place, [viewers want] pieces that look back in history to see how we got where we are and how history repeats itself. There are so many anniversary pieces around but we need a unique angle, we need unheard voices, footage we’ve never seen before, something that makes a USP for the show. This one had all of that.” This article is based on a session at Sunny Side of the Doc in June in La Rochelle.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Steve MacDonald

Channel21 International | Fall 2026

History’s survival franchise Alone

A+E Global Media’s Steve MacDonald talks distribution growth, Hearst’s big buyout and attracting Hollywood stars to factual. By Jordan Pinto

iven the head-spinning speed at which the television business is being disrupted, there is rarely a dull moment at major US media companies in 2026. That is especially true of A+E Global Media, which came under the sole ownership of Hearst Communications earlier this summer after the media conglomerate acquired Disney’s 50% stake for around US$1.2bn in cash. The change of ownership followed A+E Global’s sweeping rebrand in 2025, when it dropped the A+E Networks name in favour of one it felt better reflected the multifaceted global content business it has become. Today, the company spans brands and channels including A&E, Lifetime, History, LMN, FYI, Home. Made.Nation and Vice TV; scripted production arm A+E Studios (The Lincoln Lawyer, You); unscripted production division A+E Factual Studios; more than 70 FAST channels; owned-and-operated entities in Korea, Japan, South-East Asia and Latin America; and a content library that comprises more than 70,000 assets across longform, shortform and digital. Oh, and it’s diving headfirst into microdramas too. But amid significant change inside and outside A+E Global in recent years, one of the company’s guiding lights has been the recognition that it sits on a coveted catalogue whose value continues to increase. Maximising the value of that library falls to A+E Global’s president of global content licensing and international, Steve MacDonald. The veteran exec joined the company, then A+E Networks, in 2019 following a 24-year run at Fox, where he led content licensing sales for the US off-net syndication of drama, sitcoms, reality, originals and catalogue. “We have spent the past several years broadening the ways our content reaches audiences and creates value beyond traditional licensing,” MacDonald says.

Playing the library card A+E Global’s licensing business has “more than tripled” over the past seven years as the company has doubled down on existing licensing avenues, embraced new distribution platforms and applied precise data analysis to each deal, he says. One particularly strong performer has been Alone, its unscripted survival franchise that established a robust base in the US, where it is now in its 13th season on History. It is also growing its international presence with local versions in Denmark, where it recently aired its 10th season on DR, and Australia,

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You’re going to see more entities go even further into unscripted. Not necessarily the overall spend, but certainly the volume. And so you’ll see licensing activity pick up to augment the economics. Steve MacDonald A+E Global Media

where it has been SBS’s most-watched show every year since 2023. A new version debuted on Belgium’s Streamz last year, while it has also been adapted in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. During his time at Fox, MacDonald struck important syndication deals for scripted favourites including The Simpsons, Family Guy and Modern Family.. While he knows ﬁrst-hand how lucrative the licensing market can be for scripted series, these are strained times. 

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Steve MacDonald

Channel21 International | Fall 2026

Photo: Austin Hargrave

As budgets tighten and financing scripted drama becomes more challenging, MacDonald believes the industry will continue to lean into unscripted. On that front, he sees A+E Global as well placed to capitalise. “For international networks, it’s going to be harder and harder because of how the economic pie is changing and shifting. You’re going to see more entities go even further into unscripted. Not necessarily the overall spend, but certainly the volume. And so you’ll see licensing activity pick up to augment the economics,” he says. “We’re very well positioned relative to some of those shifts happening in the industry.” Figuring out a strategy for what to put on FAST, which is primarily monetised on an ad-based revenue-share model, versus what to license to third parties and what to withhold for proprietary SVoD services remains a delicate dance. MacDonald says A+E Global does not view these as “competing choices,” but rather as part of a “thoughtful” windowing strategy in which a third party can license a first window while the content stays free to move into later FAST and SVoD windows. “The sequence varies by title, territory and partner, but the goal remains the same: protect the initial licence while extending the life and value of the programming,” he explains. This year’s Mipcom is a key event for A+E Global, and not only because it is the first since Hearst took full ownership. Several titles will be making their debut, while it will also mark the first market where A+E Global talks to buyers about its microdrama licensing plans. Among the projects set to be showcased is The Bible Revealed (working title, 8x60’), a docuseries produced by A+E Factual Studios that brings some of the best-known Old Testament stories to life and marks the first fully AI-generated project from A+E. Other titles include History’s Strange Fortunes with Kevin Bacon (10x60’), which explores remarkable stories of fortunes made, lost and squandered, and Extraordinary Origins with Ted Danson (8x60’), which reveals the surprising beginnings of inventions that shaped modern life. A+E Global will also be shopping two new instalments of the Angie Harmonled Lifetime thriller movie Buried in Barstow. A+E Global has become synonymous with highprofile talent attached to its unscripted series. Recent examples include World War II with Tom Hanks, which launched across 200 territories in 40

languages earlier this year. Other big names it has partnered with include David Duchovny, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bradley Cooper, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Costner. “What we’ve done in unscripted is unparalleled,” says MacDonald, who praises the leadership of A+E president and chairman Paul Buccieri. “We have taken it and made it talent-first, talent-led and so connected to the storytelling. That’s why you tune in – it’s instantaneously discoverable and inviting.” While bringing eye-catching talent to the table is a core pillar, A+E Global is also embracing microdramas – either the industry’s next big thing or a bubble waiting to burst, depending on who you ask. A+E Global greenlit its first microdrama, Tides of Temptation, earlier this year. The project was commissioned under the Lifetime banner and is described as a “digital offshoot” of original movie Terry McMillan Presents: Paradise With You, which is part of the Love of a Lifetime movie series. MacDonald sees vast opportunities to bring together the burgeoning world of microdramas and the female-focused Lifetime audience. “Given that we typically do romance, thrillers, ripped-from-the-headlines and women-in-peril, they all lend themselves well to the storytelling apparatus of these 60- to 90-second [episodes],” he says. By Mipcom, the goal was to have “several hundred hours” of existing content repurposed for the vertical video format. “We’re currently on the leading edge of this, converting hundreds of movies and some of our most popular series into chapterised, high-intensity, premium micro content to be made available to some of our biggest platform partners,” he says. So as he looks to the future, how does MacDonald see A+E’s prospects as it refocuses its efforts under sole Hearst ownership? “It’s a great opportunity to continue along the path we’ve been on,” he says, adding that there “couldn’t have been a better outcome for A+E Global” than having the experienced operators behind Hearst take sole stewardship of the business. “We like the hand that we have, and we’ve got a great owner who has demonstrated their ability and willingness to invest in this business to help it continue growing and flourishing,” he says.

Left: World War II with Tom Hanks launched across 200 territories in 40 languages. Above: The Bible Revealed is A+E’s ﬁrst fully AI-generated project