TV Real MIPCOM/OCTOBER 2022

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MIPCOM/OCTOBER 2022 EDITION

AVOD & FAST Channels / Jimmy Chin / Joe Berlinger / BossaNova’s Paul Heaney

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CONTENTS

Hyping the Hybrids I am properly obsessed with Welcome to Wrexham, the absolutely brilliant FX/Hulu original docuseries about football, fans and a pair of slightly mad Hollywood celebrities descending on a working-class Welsh town.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Jamie Stalcup Associate Editor David Diehl Production & Design Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Director Genovick Acevedo Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Real ©2022 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvreal.com

The series, which premiered in August, chronicles the journey of Rob McElhenney—best known for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia—and Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds as they seek to acquire and turn around the ailing Wrexham AFC football club. Part real-life Ted Lasso, Welcome to Wrexham is a love letter to the sport, a fascinating insight into the intricacies of English football, a quick primer on Wales and incredibly funny. Beautifully written, perfectly edited and deeply heartwarming as it shows the level of devotion that Wrexham supporters have to their club and laugh-out-loud funny throughout. It is also just the footy content I need as I wait (impatiently) for the FIFA World Cup to take over my free time, beginning this November.

Welcome to Wrexham, which received a two-season order, is part of a wave of hybrid factual series we’re seeing across the landscape, and it’s a trend I hope continues. It’s on display in Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin, which deploys a marvelous mix of footage of amazing athletes pushing themselves to the absolute limit, reflective interviews with them and remarkable insights from Chin himself. I got to catch up with the accomplished climber, skier, mountaineer and Oscarwinning filmmaker about the new show; you can read that Q&A in this edition of TV Real. We also feature critically acclaimed documentary maker Joe Berlinger, whose latest project, the series Shadowland for Peacock, attempts to understand the psychology of people who have fallen for conspiracy theories like QAnon and stolen elections.

Peacock is among many streamers commissioning and acquiring ambitious, high-end factual productions today. And while SVOD still makes the most headlines, the AVOD space is picking up pace and emerging as a potentially lucrative avenue for generating revenues off library fare. And those with sizable catalogs are finding a range of opportunities with FAST channel operators; you can read my deep dive into this sector later in this issue.

—Mansha Daswani

GET DAILY NEWS ON FACTUAL TV

FEATURES

FAST TIMES The AVOD business is booming, leading to a wealth of new opportunities for distributors with sizable factual content slates.

FACTS OF LIFE Our second annual TV Real Screenings Festival spotlights fantastic new and returning properties that reflect the wealth of standout factual content available to buyers today.

INTERVIEWS

Jimmy Chin

BossaNova’s Paul Heaney

Joe Berlinger

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Bees: The Invisible Mechanism

3Boxmedia International Sales Children of the Stars / Hispania: Land of Rabbits / Bees: The Invisible Mechanism At MIPCOM, 3Boxmedia International Sales is presenting new episodes of the science and travel series Children of the Stars, which has aired on Nat Geo Mundo, Science et Vie and Smithsonian Channel. Bees: The Invisible Mechanism “introduces us to the world of pollinators in a unique way,” says Valentín Romero, international sales and acquisitions manager. “It is amazing to know that they are responsible for 75 percent of the fruit and vegetables we eat.” Another naturalhistory title, Hispania: Land of Rabbits shows how the wild creatures’ existence aids the survival of emblematic Iberian Peninsula predators. “We are proud to discover the potential of independent producers and the new stories they develop, for the market we work in, and to make great documentaries accessible for international audiences,” says Romero.

“We always look for films that can be understood by and enrich audiences anywhere.”

—Valentín Romero

Albatross World Sales Wolf—Wanderer Without Borders / Resurrecting Eden—Human Help for Nature’s Own Resilience / Chasing Rembrandt—How Art Became a Business Albatross World Sales has on offer Wolf—Wanderer Without Borders, which tells the story of how wolves came back to Eastern Europe after receiving legal protection. It follows a young lone wolf as he travels westward searching for his own territory and mate. Resurrecting Eden—Human Help for Nature’s Own Resilience examines projects around the world in which humans are helping to restore and strengthen nature.

“In a time when it’s tempting to give up hope for our planet, it is truly inspiring to see that all over the world, people are making changes for the better,” says Eleytheria Heine, sales manager for Japan, India, the Middle East, Africa and CIS. Meanwhile, Chasing Rembrandt—How Art Became a Business tracks art hunters.

APT Worldwide

Chasing Rembrandt—How Art Became a Business

“We have an impressive range of new docs to offer that we can’t wait to share, both ready-tobuy and in production.”

—Eleytheria Heine

Dream of Italy: Travel, Transform and Thrive

Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science / Inside High Noon / Dream of Italy: Travel, Transform and Thrive Leading APT Worldwide’s highlights, Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science, based on a book by author and physicist Alan Lightman, explores how scientific discoveries can help us find connections to each other and our place in the universe. In honor of the 70th anniversary of the Hollywood western High Noon, the documentary Inside High Noon goes behind the scenes and looks at the film’s troubled production. “It explores not just the feature film itself, but the turbulent era in which it was produced, which has fascinating parallels to the times we live in today,” says Judy Barlow, VP of business development and international sales.

Dream of Italy: Travel, Transform and Thrive sees celebrities such as Sting and Francis Ford Coppola talk about Italy.

“Our factual lineup includes outstanding science, history, nature, biography, travel, lifestyle, art and culture, and business programs.”

—Judy Barlow 248 WORLD SCREEN 10/22

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Mapping Disasters

Autentic Distribution GRIP / Berlin 1933—Diary of a Metropolis / Mapping Disasters Autentic Distribution’s catalog features GRIP, a car magazine show. “Male-oriented factual entertainment is sought by many of our clients,” says Mirjam Strasser, head of sales and acquisitions, noting that GRIP fits the bill. Berlin 1933—Diary of Metropolis, a follow-up to Berlin 1945, tells the story of how Berlin, a hub of modernity, became Germany’s capital city in step with the Third Reich. Mapping Disasters, meanwhile, seeks to find out what can be learned in the aftermath of Earth’s most catastrophic forces. “Using archive, CGI, modern analytics and experts, we track the time, direction and trajectory of some of the world’s biggest catastrophes,” Strasser says. “What can be uncovered post impact? What do we need to know between the inciting event and the ripple effects to curtail the swell and save lives?”

“We see ourselves as the home for authentic stories.”

—Mirjam Strasser

BossaNova Media Con Girl / Mysteries of the Ancient Dead / Engineering Repurposed The four-part docuseries Con Girl, which tells the story of con woman Samantha Azzopardi, leads BossaNova Media’s highlights. “As crime audiences morph into more sophisticated areas and following the huge success of The Tinder Swindler and The Puppet Master, for example, it seems that con artists are the next big thing in the true-crime space,” says Holly Cowdery, head of sales. “Con Girl delivers something not only totally immersive but very relevant for the modern audience as we see her forge her way through over 20 identities and multiple continents, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake.”

Across six episodes, Mysteries of the Ancient Dead investigates the methods of preserving and honoring the dead in ancient civilizations. A ten-parter, Engineering Repurposed showcases the innovation and construction behind impressive structures.

“BossaNova may be in its infancy, but we are already delivering a diverse slate where quality remains key.”

Mysteries of the Ancient Dead

—Holly Cowdery

GRB Studios Death Walker with Nick Groff / Icons Unearthed / Music’s Greatest Mysteries GRB Studios’ Death Walker with Nick Groff sees the titular paranormal investigator look into some of the most notorious hauntings in America. The new six-part docuseries Icons Unearthed reveals the secret histories of iconic film and television series and “features icons known and loved the world over, such as Star Wars and The Simpsons,” says Hud Woodle, executive VP of international sales and operations.

Also on offer, the Music’s Greatest Mysteries docuseries “investigates the most unique and enigmatic stories in the world of music,” Woodle says. It “covers topics that have altered or elevated the world of music while highlighting the colorful characters that have indelibly changed the course of music history.” Woodle adds, “These shows highlight just a few from our vast catalog of almost 4,000 hours.”

Death Walker with Nick Groff

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“GRB only acquires and distributes programs that appeal to a global audience in a variety of genres.”

—Hud Woodle

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NHK Enterprises Young Carers: A Silent Cry for Help NHK Enterprises (NEP) is highlighting the documentary film Young Carers: A Silent Cry for Help, which was made over the course of two years exploring the lives of children who serve as carers for family members. “It shows in great detail how they struggle alone without being able to confide in anyone, and it gives an extremely detailed picture of the severe impact on their school life and career,” says Yukari Harada, senior producer. “The biggest appeal of this documentary is that the story goes beyond just documenting the hidden hard lives of young carers.” Among those featured in the doc are a high school student caring for his mother, who has cerebral palsy, and a man in his 40s who spent three decades taking care of his mother.

Young Carers: A Silent Cry for Help

“NHK and NEP are also making lots of other appealing programs about Japan’s rich cultural and natural environments and the lives of people who live there.”

—Yukari Harada

Paramount Global Content Distribution Nothing Compares / 11 Minutes / Growing Up Grizzly The MIPCOM highlights from Paramount Global Content Distribution show the depth and breadth that the company is able to offer in the marketplace across its factual brands. The slate includes Nothing Compares, a documentary feature on Sinead O’Connor that outlines her meteoric rise to global fame. “She’s an iconoclast known around the world with an absolutely fascinating life story,” says Lauren Marriott, senior VP of content partnerships and brand strategy. 11 Minutes explores the raw human stories of people present at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, where a mass shooting took place. Growing Up Grizzly provides a peek into the lives of two orphaned cubs, one left to fend for itself in nature and one raised in captivity.

“Paramount Global Content Distribution now has one of the most diverse and largest factual slates at the market.”

Growing Up Grizzly

—Lauren Marriott

War Gamers

ZDF Studios Surviving Hothouse Earth / War Gamers / Africa from Above The ZDF Studios highlight Surviving Hothouse Earth takes a different approach to tackling the issue of climate change.

The documentary offers a look into our planet’s distant past in order to understand its present and find clues to how we could survive in the future. “With climate change being the biggest challenge we face today, Surviving Hothouse Earth will offer fascinating insights into the scientific research that is being undertaken to help mankind find a solution,” says Ralf Rückauer, VP Unscripted. The documentary War Gamers reveals the untold story of the Wrens, an all-female team whose brilliant tactics defeated a massive convoy of German U-boats in WWII. The series Africa from Above promises a look at Africa’s people, places and wildlife from a new perspective.

“We have a very impressive offering of programs, both in terms of quality and quantity.”

—Ralf Rückauer 252 WORLD SCREEN 10/22

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Albatross World Sales’ Polar Bear Summer.

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Times

The AVOD business is booming, leading to a wealth of new opportunities for distributors with sizable factual content slates. By Mansha Daswani

W

hether you can’t get enough of hotheaded celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay or are eager to spend a day on a true-crime binge, the AVOD universe has something for you. Indeed, FAST channels have taken the model from the heyday of pay TV—branded networks delivering everything from general entertainment to nothing but motoring shows—and put it on steroids. There is a service for every niche, which means that distributors with sizable catalogs are finding plenty of new ways to monetize their IP.

COST CRUNCH “With Covid slowly disappearing, a war in Europe, an energy crisis and inflation of around 7 percent to 9 percent, people are having a closer look at their subscription fees,” says Ralf Rückauer, VP Unscripted at ZDF Studios. “Ad-funded business models are getting more into play. Specifically, FAST channels are getting a lot of momentum, while SVOD is losing a bit. For us as a distributor, both models are interesting in the mix with classical free and pay linear.”

Hud Woodle, executive VP of international sales and operations at GRB Studios, notes, “AVOD has presented extremely well for us and our international sales efforts.

AVOD platforms are popping up all over the world, and so

are FAST channels. This has certainly resulted in an increased demand for unscripted content across the board.”

Anne Olzmann, managing director of Albatross World Sales, agrees that the AVOD space has become increasingly important. “After a true ‘launch wave’ of SVOD platforms accelerated by the pandemic, this market is slowly but steadily saturated. Now, in combination with inflation and world-shaking events such as the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis, people are becoming more reluctant about where to spend their entertainment money. So, seemingly, the free options that AVOD and FAST offer are the go-to solutions to broaden the offer. With different SVOD platforms now also exploring lower or even dropping subscription fees, this is quite obvious to note. We have been working with different AVOD and FAST operators for quite some time now, and while it has taken some time to set up, it’s starting to become very lucrative, especially for titles that have made their TV round and are ready for third and fourth runs.”

Autentic Distribution is also seeing increased trade with AVOD services, according to Mirjam Strasser, head of sales and acquisitions. “We are already cooperating with a number of them for YouTube exploitation and can see a constant and growing revenue stream from there. AVOD is the fastest-growing segment of the TV market right now. Autentic has been active in this market for a while now. Together

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Hot Roads—The World’s Most Dangerous Roads has been among Autentic’s top sellers in the AVOD and FAST space.

with our trusted partners, we are increasingly monetizing our IP via AVOD.”

SLOW DOWN The FAST business, however, is not for the faint of heart.

Managing deliverables can be a challenge for those without the proper expertise.

“We had to create a specific structure in-house to deal with this volume of deliveries,” Olzmann says. “After all, we remain a small team, and our focus has not necessarily always been volume but rather high-end one-offs and specials. TV remains our core business. When it comes to AVOD/FAST, we noticed that different platforms have different needs. Some need a 100-word synopsis; others want 150 words. The same goes for

now have a good base to work with different AVOD/FAST buyers in different territories.”

Strasser says Autentic has started developing a “metadata delivery infrastructure” as it builds its business with ondemand operators. “Extra headcount is required. And we need to educate our production partners to ensure that the right deliverables are generated in the production workstream.”

VOLUME GAME As Olzmann notes, distributors have to make strategic decisions over how much time to invest in building an AVOD strategy. “On a per-title basis, AVOD revenues are still relatively low—it’s all about volume,” she says. “We distribute a German classic wildlife TV series called Eye to Eye with

“When it comes to AVOD/FAST, different platforms have different needs.” —Albatross’ Anne Olzmann the artwork that goes with it. But once you have a delivery base for the programs, things can move quickly and need less adaptation. But it was certainly a big challenge to evaluate potential revenues and how much effort we can put in. This is especially the case for revenue-share deals, where you have to take a certain risk in the beginning and deliver without really knowing what revenues are to be expected. But we have spent a lot of time exploring the different markets and platforms and

Nature by Ernst Arendt and Hans Schweiger that has been running since the ’70s and now has over 50 episodes. We have sold AVOD and FAST rights, and we see how much the audience loves this, as these episodes can’t be seen anywhere else. Wildlife and nature films are a very rewarding genre for third and fourth runs on AVOD and FAST.” Autentic’s Strasser observes, “AVOD represents a significant share of our content distribution revenues. But

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ZDF Studios, which is showcasing Africa from Above, is exploring a range of AVOD opportunities for its deep catalog of factual content.

these revenues have to be seen in context. They are a meaningful add-on to other revenue sources. But they are not yet significant enough to fund original productions. Will AVOD develop the revenue power to pay for the creation of quality content? That’s the big question.”

Woodle has seen reignited interest in GRB’s older shows, such as Full Force Nature, Storm Warning! and The Ultimate Stuntman—A Tribute to Dar Robinson, which are “in-demand and performing relatively well on AVOD platforms,” he says.

“Volume is, of course, key,” he continues. “With sufficient volume, be it series or genre, the content may be programmed into its own channel—that lends itself to the leanback process. For example, GRB has 200-plus hours of On the Case. In theory, there might be an On the Case channel, and people could lean back and enjoy it. This works on linear as well. Of course, On the Case would also fit nicely on a crime channel or AVOD section. FAST and AVOD present many new opportunities and flexibility. We’ve found it to be a quite lucrative business working with these services.”

PUZZLE PIECES Max Einhorn, senior VP of acquisitions and co-productions at FilmRise, encourages content owners to have an AVOD strategy. The company operates the FilmRise Streaming Network, a slate of apps and FAST channels curated around genres, among them true crime, and distributes a library of content to third-party services.

“We’re big believers in ubiquitous distribution for film and television library content,” Einhorn says. “Unless you have something big and special that’s very expensive, having your content exclusively with one platform [means] leaving money on the table, and you’re preventing yourself from building an audience for your content.”

Einhorn adds, “We have business cases that suggest there’s no cannibalization when you distribute content onto multiple platforms. In fact, there’s more than a one-to-one increase in terms of monetization for ad-supported revenue.

We see the awareness of a piece of content being lifted overall when content is placed in many places, and it’s to the benefit of the distributor.”

As for where AVOD should sit when crafting a distribution strategy, the jury is still out on that one.

“While the ‘VOD team’ wants to market as quickly and widely as possible, the ‘linear channels team’ often hopes that we will be able to negotiate a presale or a sale at much better conditions,” says Rückauer at ZDF Studios. “The VOD team tends to say that the linear channel hopes for [exclusivity] last too long. The truth lies in the middle. You have to balance this internal dispute very carefully. And at the same time, almost all ‘traditional’ broadcasters want more and more holdbacks and securities, while VOD and FAST channels offer more attractive long-tail effects. Gut feelings and some market experience help a lot.”

At Albatross, Olzmann notes, “We don’t work as much with windowing and AVOD yet. At this point, our main clients for new programs remain TV broadcasters and SVOD. However, with TV deals, we try to limit holdbacks for VOD, thus including AVOD.” “We can see that more and more linear partners seek exclusive AVOD rights for themselves, or they require holdbacks against AVOD,” agrees Strasser at Autentic.

“This, too, confirms the success of these channels; AVOD services are increasingly competing with linear cable and satellite channels. Windowing strategies are a regular topic in all sales conversations these days.”

While AVOD deals are still largely rev-shares with the occasional minimum guarantee, traditional license fees are a new development in the space, Woodle says.

“If a program is available in a territory, we’ll approach and offer it to all platforms and traditional channels equally,” Woodle says. “Depending on the level of interest, if any service, be it SVOD, AVOD or linear, is able to pay a license fee, GRB can consider an exclusive agreement, and we are open to doing that. We’re also interested in windowing as the program and territory/regional markets might allow.”

ORIGINAL SPINS Outside of bigger players like Roku and Amazon Freevee, AVOD channels are almost entirely playing in the acquisitions game. But originals should be expected for platforms as they scale.

“The advertising-based marketing model seems very suitable for factual programming,” says Rückauer at ZDF Studios.

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GRB Studios has done a range of AVOD deals on the long-running Untold Stories of the ER.

“Many AVOD and FAST channels are quite niche-oriented— their advertising offer is limited and therefore can’t generate the same advertising revenue” as traditional broadcasters, Olzmann says. “Advertisers, too, have to increase and split their marketing budgets between different advertising platforms depending on their strategy and brand. So, at the moment, revenues are still quite limited, and I believe don’t allow them to invest in many originals.

However, to market the AVOD brand itself, it makes sense to invest in flagship programming that will define that brand. I think this is a way to go, but it will still take more time than it took for SVOD platforms.”

FilmRise, encouraged by the success of its true-crime platform, has begun partnering on originals, among them Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace.

have the luxury of being able to effectively syndicate out a series or engineer when there is a micro exclusivity with certain platforms to help make these productions possible.

Bloodline Detectives, for which we’ve already done two seasons, we syndicated outward to broadcast and to many digital platforms.”

“The question is not if, but when,” says Autentic’s Strasser on AVOD services becoming major commissioners of originals.

“We are already looking for the right projects.”

Strasser says that Autentic is also planning the launch of FAST channels based on its own IP, a space that several distributors with major brands are looking at or have already entered. Banijay has FAST channels devoted to megabrands such as Deal or No Deal, Fear Factor and The Biggest Loser.

Even Curiosity Stream, a leader in the SVOD factual space,

“We’re big believers in ubiquitous distribution for film and TV library content.” —FilmRise’s Max Einhorn “We found that there is a certain size of production that we can get comfortable with,” Einhorn says. “These are unscripted co-productions that we’re getting involved with in which we say, We understand the capability of monetization and revenue generation in the space. If we get involved in something at this stage, we are not going to be depending on an SVOD platform or a broadcaster to take that first window position. We’re not depending on a license fee. We

has unveiled a FAST channel service, Curiosity Now, primarily to help drive the discovery of its curated originals and acquisitions.

Adam Lewinson, chief content officer at Tubi, notes that the Gordon Ramsay FAST channel has been proving popular with users because it provides “a sampling opportunity for new content. The great thing about democratizing content is that it gives you every opportunity to find different paths to it.”

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Jimmy Chin

I

n 2018, audiences across the globe were mesmerized by rock climber Alex Honnold’s death-defying quest to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, as documented in National Geographic’s Free Solo. A box-office hit, grossing over $29 million, the film landed many awards, most notably the Oscar for best documentary feature. Free Solo hailed from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and was among Chin’s many creative endeavors documenting life on the edge. The accomplished climber, skier and mountaineer is now fronting Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin, which premiered on National Geographic and Disney+ in September. The ten-part production goes behind the scenes of several leading athletes’ most hair-raising adventures, featuring the likes of Honnold himself as well as surfer Justine Dupont, snowboarder Travis Rice and more.

TV Real caught up with Chin to discuss how the show came about and his and Vasarhelyi’s first-look pact with National Geographic.

By Mansha Daswani TV REAL: What was the story you wanted to tell with this show?

CHIN: These are the greatest stories you haven’t heard of.

We previously made Free Solo about Alex Honnold free soloing El Cap. It opened the floodgates; we realized that there was a lot of interest in these types of athletes. Just visually, it’s extraordinary to watch what they do. Still, there wasn’t much context or an understanding of who these athletes are, what they’re doing, what the stakes are, the kind of decision-making they have to use in risk assessment—all of these different layers. This show aims to give the audience more context and appreciation of who these athletes are, what they do, the level of detail and training and their mentality. In some ways, people don’t necessarily relate immediately on the surface to these athletes. But if you watch the series, you understand that they are very much human, like you and me. They have to make tough decisions to do what they do. How much do you sacrifice to do the things that are meaningful to you?

Those are things I think every audience can relate to. We hope to give the audience a much deeper appreciation of the depth and the layers of what they see on social media and in these [athletes’] films and videos. Ultimately, it comes back to this idea of common humanity with people we might not think we can relate to.

TV REAL: How did you decide on the athletes whose stories you wanted to tell?

CHIN: If you come from my world of big mountain snowboarding, kayaking, Arctic exploration, skiing, all these different sports, this roster is literally the best of the best.

Story was the most important to us. And they had to be truly masters of their craft and have that credibility of being one of the greats. Whether one was as famous as the others didn’t matter as much as they had to be the best of the best. We’re looking at some of the most challenging moments in their careers. Often, these are the ones they didn’t talk about or didn’t get much attention for. These are the greatest stories you haven’t heard. You might follow one of the [athletes] loosely, but you might not have known that this one moment changed the course of their career. It’s not a space anybody’s ever taken the time to explore. For me, as an athlete, those are the most important moments. They also shine a light on people’s true characters because that’s when they’re the most vulnerable. That was a huge part of the motivation of the series.

TV REAL: How did you and the team decide on the format, combining the athletes’ footage with interviews with them and your reflections on these stories layered on top?

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Jimmy Chin skis down a mountain in the Teton Range in National Geographic’s Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin.

CHIN: I would like to tell you we were just brilliant, and we just thought of it and executed it. I was never supposed to be in the show. I was trying to tell somebody else’s story. But over the course of making some of the earlier ones, when we were starting to edit, I kept saying: Someone needs to give context. We need to interview somebody else because I still don’t get the sense of why Travis [Rice] is so great. He’s so great because he’s not just a snowboarder; he’s an artist. He doesn’t look at his snowboarding lines as physical things. He’s looking at them like an artist. He’s also hugely involved with how it’s captured. He’s directing as well. I’m trying to explain this and [the other producers] were like, Well, why don’t you tell us? We’ll interview you, and you will tell us how great Travis is. I did that; everyone was like, that’s useful, do that for the next one! And the next one! That’s how it happened. I wasn’t planning on making a show called Edge of the Unknown with Me. TV REAL: Was it strange for you to be in the studio so much, given we’re so used to seeing you hanging off mountain ranges?

CHIN: I’ve been a professional athlete for a long time.

I’ve had the camera pointed at me a lot over the last 20 years. This is my 22nd year on the North Face Athlete Team, so I’m used to it. Probably the most painful part of this process is the people trying to interview me, the director: No, no, that’s not the right question! I can try to answer the question, but you asked the wrong question. Can I tell you the question I want you to ask me, and then I’ll answer it? I’m horrible. “Why would you ask me that question? That’s not a good question. The real question is….”

TV REAL: You’ve been in your own hair-raising situations. What are some of the things you’ve learned from these other athletes’ stories?

CHIN: I always feel a lot of empathy. I’m pretty cold and clear when the stakes are high, and I have to make hard decisions in difficult moments. If I allow myself, I 266 WORLD SCREEN 10/22

can be deeply empathetic to a person’s situation.

Maybe this is why I’ve ended up being a filmmaker and a photographer. I can put myself in their place and feel what they feel. That’s the two sides of me. Part of me can be easily emotional. Like if I let myself be. That’s not just crying when I’m watching movies on a plane!

It’s part of my process. It’s how I draw inspiration from the stories that I tell. If I know what they’re feeling, I’m translating that to an audience. My first film, Meru, was about translating what I felt toward my partners. That sense of mentorship, brotherhood and loyalty that I felt toward my climbing partners and my mentor, Conrad [Anker]. I want people to understand that the reason why we climb is beyond just climbing mountains. It’s about the sense of loyalty and friendship you have. It’s a common goal. In the storytelling of this series, I hear the frustrations of many athletes. I hear the challenges.

I’m about to do this heavy expedition to kayak this river.

I have a newborn. Is this the right thing for me to be doing? But this is who I am. How do I justify it? Is there a way to justify it? There are all of these conflicting, internal conflicts that happen. There are many layers to these athletes. I want to express that.

TV REAL: Tell us about your relationship with Disney and National Geographic and the storytelling opportunities the first-look deal has afforded you.

CHIN: It’s been a dream come true to have Disney and National Geographic support our work. It’s a real vote of confidence for us as storytellers. They’ve given us a lot of latitude in terms of what we bring to the table as filmmakers and even for me as a photographer. Having that support, belief and trust allows us to do the best and greatest work we’re capable of. They’ve given us the resources and the trust. Those two things, in this industry, are challenging! Because we have that trust and those resources, we were allowed to do our best work. That’s the relationship, and hopefully, it’s symbiotic: We bring them the content that allows them to achieve their goals as well.

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Paul Heaney BossaNova Media

By Mansha Daswani

t’s been two years since Cineflix Rights and TCB Media Rights alum Paul Heaney established BossaNova Media and a year since the co-production and distribution outfit received a transformative investment from Herbert L. Kloiber’s Night Train Media. As the venture gears up to mark its second anniversary at MIPCOM, Heaney tells TV Real about where the business is today and its plans for the year ahead.

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TV REAL: What’s been your approach to building the BossaNova slate since launch?

HEANEY: We’re not obsessed with growing the number of new titles. We want enough volume, noise and quality of the right shows. We’re also not looking at padding out a catalog with potential channel fodder. Others may have that business model, and maybe we will in the future, but this is our plan right now. We see it as more of a slate than a catalog—and maybe that’s a key difference with BossaNova.

TV REAL: There’s much talk about the AVOD potential for factual content, particularly in FAST channels. What’s your approach to this segment?

HEANEY: There are huge burgeoning opportunities for franchised TV shows to have their own channels. That’s certainly something we’re looking at. We’ve just helped create potential franchises in some cases, so we are at the build phase, seeing what opportunities are there but looking to control the process a bit more, building the BossaNova brand and the titles themselves. Doing the right thing for our producers is core to our ambitions.

TV REAL: How do you see the prospects for licensing content to AVOD platforms on a revenue-share basis?

HEANEY: We don’t want to miss an opportunity, so we’re open to it, but we’re also very open to a license fee deal!

We’re pretty fast-moving because we’re small. But I’m not getting hung up by it. If we can do it, we do; if we can’t with our resources, we won’t.

We’re doing our research, talking to as many people as possible and building up our expertise. We won’t turn down a revenue opportunity if it makes sense. Still, at the same time, we’ve got a duty to the producers to ensure we’re not underselling them or overexposing them when we’re not ready yet to make it work properly. We’re ensuring we’re making the right decisions in how we market ourselves and what sort of slate we have. I’m not happy to bring in content for the sake of having new content. That can be counterproductive. Everyone’s a million miles away from that now. We concentrate on getting the best deals for the shows. And because there is so much choice for the viewer, commissioners have to make their projects more incredible, eyecatching, fresher, edgier, etc. There isn’t any room for content that just does a little job; it’s got to do a proper job. The market has, without a doubt, changed in this respect.

Unscripted has to do the job of a scripted show in respect to attracting an audience—why shouldn’t it?

TV REAL: What does the team look for in acquisitions?

HEANEY: In the producer, a track record of delivering and executing on time. A well-researched idea. If it’s a commercial specialist factual series, you need good archive and an original take on something. Even if it’s the same story, you need an original way in. If it’s simplistic and doesn’t have enough

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layers, we won’t do it. We’re not going to do anything that looks too cynical or simplistic. Everything needs a certain layer of sophistication with respect to the audience. All producers realize you have to have something clever now. It doesn’t have to be intellectual or cerebral. If you look at our Development Day (coming up to the third as BossaNova and the eighth overall across the two businesses), the projects that stood out were sometimes outrageously original in the topic, but some ideas were only more original in their angle and execution rather than the story. That’s what we’re looking for.

TV REAL: How was Development Day this year?

HEANEY: It was across two days. We had 124 projects, whittled down from 300. We had 94 factual projects on day one; the rest were true crime/stranger than fiction on day two. We had over 70 buyers who then voted for their favorite projects. Out of those 124, maybe 10 percent to 15 percent will be ultimately commissioned or co-produced by us. That’s not a bad strike rate. If a broadcaster platform had a similar day, would you expect 10 percent of those projects to go into production? Maybe, maybe not. We’re heavily vetting the projects. We’ve encouraged the producers to put more breadth into the range of ideas they’re coming up with. Some might just not hit the mark. The buyers’ online voting process totally informs our decisions. It’s their votes, plus our forecasts, experience and gut feel.

TV REAL: What trends are you seeing in true crime?

HEANEY: You hear that the market has hit saturation for many returning true-crime franchises. At the same time, there is a demand for new strands. If it were four years ago, we’d have more returnable true-crime series than we do now. We have two returnables. And that’s fine for now, till the market tells us something else. Do we have some singles, some two-parters, some potential four- and six-parters, all in the “stranger-thanfiction, you can’t make up” areas? Yes, we do—a complete mixed offering.

TV REAL: What other trends do you see in the market?

HEANEY: The big elephant in the room is about the distribution business itself. How can smaller businesses survive when projects they are offered need financing almost every time? It looks like it’s sustainable if you’re a big business. At TCB, in the beginning, most of the shows we got were funded. In this world, the opposite is the case. [Shows comes funded] 10, 15 percent of the time.

TV REAL: What level of funding gap do you need to provide?

HEANEY: Sometimes it’s 100 percent when we’re fully commissioning. You take that risk.

If it’s not 100 percent, it could be 10 or 20 percent. It depends on the sort of deal you do with the producer. Do you take a bit of backend and a smaller percentage? The whole point is, can we start delivering royalties to this producer and get it into the black? That’s the whole point.

You’re not going to be able to do it on every show, so you have to overdeliver on the ones you do.

Producers can be put into a difficult position. They want their show to be made, but at the same time, they’ve got to protect their IP from being flogged around the world with no return, which does happen.

TV REAL: How do you manage growth in this market, where everything changes so fast?

HEANEY: Having done it twice before helped.

Everything is a challenge, but there’s a solution for everything. Though I’m often stumped. It’s part of the fun of having a business. I’m always trying to err on the side of caution, but you have to test yourselves and give the business a bit of stretch target. We could easily be the fastest-growing distributor in the U.K. this year.

But we came from a very low base! That is not the aim, however. I’m here for many reasons—the relationships, and the challenges, keep us all vital.

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A new season of Caught on Dashcam is among BossaNova’s lead titles for MIPCOM.

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All3Media International’s War and Justice: The Case of Marine A

FACTS OF LIFE In the run-up to MIPCOM, our second annual TV Real Screenings Festival spotlights fantastic new and returning properties that reflect the wealth of standout factual content available to buyers today. Whether you’re on the hunt for your latest true-crime obsession, new blue-chip fare celebrating the wonders of the world or high-end factual entertainment that will educate and delight, you’re sure to find it here.

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DF Studios has long been known for its strengths in science, wildlife and history, and those proficiencies are on display in its TV Real Screenings Festival lineup. The three-part Surviving Hothouse Earth spotlights climate change, delivering “cinematic shots of nature, landscapes and urban life,” says Ralf Rückauer, VP Unscripted, alongside expert commentary. Lush footage is also available in the ten-part Africa from Above, Rückauer notes, pointing to its “spectacular aerial adventure” that spotlights how “humans and animals live in some of the most extreme

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environments on Earth.” The six-part War Gamers, meanwhile, delivers a new perspective on World War II as it focuses on members of the U.K.’s Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens).

All3Media International is offering up a 90-minute documentary with a different battlefield perspective: War and Justice: The Case of Marine A. “Featuring exclusive footage and powerful, candid testimony from Alexander Blackman, aka Marine A, this documentary film delves into the dark heart of those defining moments in battle and the ensuing four-year legal campaign for Blackman’s freedom,” says Rachel Job, senior VP of non-scripted content.

On the true-crime front, Job highlights the two-part How to Hire a Hitman, which she describes as an “eye-opening investigation into the dark side of the internet.” Lifestyle and factual entertainment round out the selections, with season nine of the beloved New Dominion’s A Spy in the FBI Escape to the Chateau, season ten of Fake or Fortune, the “colorful and entertaining” Gino’s Italy: Like Mamma Used to Make with Gino D’Acampo and the six-part Sarah Beeny’s Little House, Big Plans, which Job says is “packed with fantastic tips, professional insights and inspiring ZDF Studios’ Surviving Hothouse Earth

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All3Media International’s Gino’s Italy: Like Mamma Use to Make

stories demonstrating how attainable your dream home can be through creativity and ingenuity and hard work.”

Tatiana Grinkevich, senior sales manager at BossaNova Media, highlights The Andes Tragedy: 50 Years Later, which tells the definitive story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane disappeared in the Andes in 1972. “One of the most harrowing and fascinating survival stories of all time is retold by the survivors and experts, as we relive their journey and gain new insights into the infamous crash that brought them to the very brink of humanity,” Grinkevich says. BossaNova also has a new science series in the ten-part Engineering Repurposed.

New Dominion Pictures is offering up a true-crime doc: A Spy in the FBI, which, per Kristen Eppley, executive VP of distribution, “has it all: it has drama, it has espionage, it has sex,” as it chronicles the story of Robert Hanssen. The company also has 115 episodes of the paranormal

ZDF Studios’ War Gamers

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BossaNova’s The Andes Tragedy: 50 Years Later

series A Haunting and 70 episodes of the reality series FantomWorks, focused on the “largest automotive restoration shop in America,” Eppley says.

Rive Gauche arrives at MIPCOM with a three-part natural-history production, Living Earth, exploring plants and animals in deserts. “Using gyro-stabilized 8K aerials, 6K drone photography, high-speed Phantom photography, timelapse, macro and elegant graphics, we will reveal the inner workings of these ecosystems in breathtaking detail—from the individual hairs on the back of a jumping spider to the wingbeats of a dragonfly as it plucks a mayfly from above the water,” says Marine Ksadzhikyan, COO and executive VP of sales. Also available is the six-part doc series In Their Own Words, which profiles the likes of Angela Merkel and Elon Musk, and the 13-part series Disaster Déjà Vu, about places like San Francisco and Peru that suffered brutal natural disasters twice.

New Dominion’s FantomWorks

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Joe Berlinger

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hroughout his prolific career as a documentary filmmaker, Joe Berlinger has sought to tell stories that expose social injustices and explode stereotypes. He tackled wrongful convictions in projects such as the Paradise Lost trilogy and Wrong Man, profiled notorious figures in docs like Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich and scintillated with stories of true crime in such works as Murder Among the Mormons and Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. In the recently released Shadowland, streaming on Peacock, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker explores a divided America, dispatching documentary teams across the country to embed with subjects who have rejected mainstream narratives and stoked the fires of conspiracy theories.

By Kristin Brzoznowski TV REAL: What was the inspiration behind Shadowland?

BERLINGER: The Atlantic magazine did some amazing reporting with an online project called Shadowland, in which they talked about conspiracy theories, their origins and why people believe them. I thought that was a great idea. So, I talked to The Atlantic about turning it into a TV series and following their reporters as they investigate while also doing our own reporting. That’s how it started.

The country is very divided; we have divided into two camps for the most part. We demonize each other. We treat each other like caricatures, and yet we’re all Americans. So, I was more interested in the human angle, not in litigating the truthfulness or lack thereof of various conspiracy theories, although the burden of doing the show is obviously you can’t give oxygen to conspiracy theories. I don’t want people to walk away from the show thinking that the point of view that people are expressing about dangerous Covid cures, for example, is true because then I’m contributing to the problem of misinformation. But generally speaking, I wanted to allow people to have their say, to treat them with respect and understand why they’ve come to believe in these conspiracy theories. It’s no longer on the fringes; conspiracy theories have moved to the mainstream. They are driving our politics. The very foundation of American democracy is people with different interests and points of view coming together, agreeing upon a basic set of facts as the truth and then trying to do what’s best for the collective good. That’s obviously not happening in this country.

People don’t talk to each other; they demonize each other.

That’s when totalitarianism knocks on the door. I wanted to go out into this world with a team of great filmmakers. There were three terrific directors on this, and I was the executive producer, and they brought back some amazing material.

TV REAL: How did you decide what stories would be explored across the six-part series?

BERLINGER: We wanted to hit upon all of the major issues that are going on. We focus on several people involved with the January 6 [insurrection]. We focus on families torn apart

by QAnon, where one family member is a believer and others aren’t. That’s a huge problem. You see the fabric of society being torn apart at the family level. You also see local politics becoming increasingly dysfunctional. We profiled school board meetings and shot some of it during the height of Covid, so the hot topic was masking or not, vaccines and all that. It was not a healthy debate at the school board meetings. There were knockdown, drag-out fights, to the point where some school board members going out to their cars to go home were getting death threats. So, [we looked at issues] at the local level, at the family level and, of course, at the national level.

People on the left want to think of the January 6 rioters as just thugs and criminals. I’m not condoning any of their actions, but my feeling is that many of them deeply believe in the righteousness of what they were doing and that the election was stolen and they’re saving the country from tyranny—that justified their actions. If you put yourself in their shoes, which is what I want the series to do, and you were to think that a dictator was coming along, taking over and doing a coup, wouldn’t you respond and do something? There are deeply held incorrect beliefs, which have been fueled by irresponsible journalism and social media. If we start to understand how people come to their beliefs, then we can start intelligently talking about a solution. But finger-pointing and demonization are not the way.

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Joe Berlinger explores the deep divides in American society in the Peacock original Shadowland.

TV REAL: What does the docuseries reveal about the current state of American society?

BERLINGER: That it’s deeply divided. That a lot more people than you would imagine actually believe these things.

There’s been a decades-long cause of this, a progression. At one time, there were three television networks, for the most part, national networks. And there was an iron wall [between] their news and entertainment divisions. The entertainment division was the one that made the profits.

The news division was a gift to the American people for the FCC providing that network a license. Somewhere along the line, that wall started to erode, and it got further eroded by the advent of the 24-hour news cycle and the proliferation of cable stations. That line between entertainment and news has become blurry, ratings-driven and financially motivated because they sell advertising. It opened the door to opinion journalism and just flat-out irresponsible journalism to stoke dissent and make money. That intersects with social media. On the one hand, [a smartphone is] an amazing device. The fact that I can go on my iPhone and get any bit of information I’ve ever wondered about instead of waiting until I can pull out an encyclopedia is miraculous, but it’s also filled with disinformation. So, the thing that has been a great source of information has also been a great source of disinformation. Also, I can use my phone to connect with people of like-minded interests, which was unheard of before the internet and the popularization of social media. But now, people are finding each other and just confirming their biases and living in an echo chamber because of how news is reported. It’s a troubling situation. I don’t have the answers to how to fix it. But I think we start by understanding the roots of the problem, treating people with respect and trying to understand how they have come to their beliefs. That’s the goal of the project: to promote a little more dialogue so that we can see how we have more in common than what separates us.

TV REAL: Is there a throughline to the stories you want to tell with your work?

BERLINGER: I like to shine a light on a problem that needs fixing. Even though sometimes I’m labeled as a true-crime pioneer, I really think of myself as a social-justice documentarian. I’ve tried to shine a light on wrongful conviction or victim advocacy issues. So, this show fits right in because I think there’s a fundamental problem with how 272 WORLD SCREEN 10/22

democracy is functioning precisely because of irresponsible reporting of the news and how social media platforms have handled information and disinformation. I think we have a major societal problem.

The other thing I love to do in my work is to explode stereotypes, like with Paradise Lost. Just because somebody wears black and listens to Metallica doesn’t make them a devil-worshiping teen who’s killed 8-year-olds, which was the horrible miscarriage of justice that Paradise Lost profiles. The stereotype that I want to explode [in this series] is that somehow those people are just evil, misguided and horrible, like the “deplorables.” If you start talking about people that way, it makes them defensive and doesn’t promote any kind of mutual understanding. My goal is to explode the stereotype that we’re so different and try to really understand how to have a dialogue about getting back on track because I think our country is headed toward the crumbling of democracy.

TV REAL: With the proliferation of streaming platforms, have you seen more opportunities for documentaries nowadays compared to when you started out or even, say, five years ago?

BERLINGER: When I first started in the business, actually breaking even on a documentary would have been a great goal. I directed television commercials while making documentaries in the first decade of my career because that’s really [how I earned money to] raise my family. But, thanks to streaming, documentary has become a real business. It’s the golden age. There’s so much documentary activity.

Brother’s Keeper, which turned 30 this year, was the first film I made with my producing partner Bruce Sinofsky.

Even though it won a prize at Sundance, all the distributors said, Who wants to see a documentary about these creepy brothers, one of whom is accused of murdering the other? We believed in the film, so we took it out and self-distributed it, and it was quite successful. We had six 35mm release prints for that movie, and we schlepped them around the country. If 400 people saw the movie in a theater on a weekend, Bruce and I would high-five each other; it was like we died and went to heaven. Today, you push something out on a streaming platform, and it can get a hundred million viewers. Platforms like Peacock and Netflix are providing incredible opportunities for filmmakers. It has never been a more exciting time to do this.

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