Factual
Voicing fears over the use of AI in docs
Smashing it: Ways to work with Nat Geo An invitation to A er Party’s new world
PLUS: France Télévisions calls for docs to break new ground
Roadrunner: A Film About
Anthony Bourdain
Raising voices
You’re doom scrolling a social media app when a video catches your eye. Or rather a voice catches your ear. It is, unmistakably, Sir David Attenborough, but he’s not saying Sir David Attenborough things. Instead, he is extolling the virtues of drilling in the Arctic and burning what we find there, heating the planet so wine grapes can grow in Inverness.
The artificial intelligence (AI) technology to achieve this deepfake already exists, and it’s getting more sophisticated all the time. In 2023, Attenborough told Business Insider: “The fact I find this personally distressing may count for nothing in the minds of people who freely share the ability to create false versions of me regardless of my feelings. But it is of the greatest concern to me that one day, and that day may now be very close, someone is going to use AI to deceive others into believing that I am saying things contrary to my beliefs or that misrepresent the wider concerns I have spent a lifetime trying to explain and promote.”
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The factual sector has already grappled with controversy in this area. Morgan Neville, director of the 2021 doc Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, revealed he fed 10 hours of the late chef’s voice into AI to create 45 seconds of voiceover for the film following his death by suicide in 2018. It sparked outrage among critics, fans and family members. Neville rather flippantly told the New Yorker: “We can have a documentary ethics panel about it later.”
AI tech that allows you to use the voices of David Attenborough, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Bourdain or whoever you like in your content already exists and is improving all the time. But is it legal or, indeed, moral to do so? By Clive Whittingham
is not Sir David, unfortunately,” says digital consultant and AI specialist Dan Taylor-Watt. “The current legal provisions in the UK don’t have something that directly addresses voice likeness and there is a need for new legislation like we’re seeing in the US.
It is of the greatest concern to me that one day, and that day may now be very close, someone is going to use AI to deceive others into believing that I am saying things contrary to my beliefs.
Sir David Attenborough
The time for that panel is probably now. Perhaps in response to Scarlett Johansson lawyering up earlier this year after OpenAI released its chatbot with a voice eerily similar to her own from the 2013 film Her, Facebookowner Meta recently made sure it licensed the voices of Awkwafina, John Cena, Dame Judy Dench and many more stars for its AI chatbots.
“It’s a good thing to shine a spotlight on because the short answer to who owns David Attenborough’s voice
and essentially there isn’t any
“Last year there was a UK indie band that put out an album of songs in the style of Oasis, with an AI-generated Liam Gallagher ‘singing’ the lyrics under the name AISIS. Fortunately, Liam was really positive about it and they were using original songs written by themselves, so there was no underlying copyright around the track. It was just a clone of the voice and essentially there isn’t any real legal recompense for that at the moment.”
Content creators are e ectively being relied on to not do such things because they are wrong and could damage relationships with talent, Taylor-Watt believes, adding: “When it comes to big, established broadcast and streaming outfits they would be a bit foolish to do that without authorisation at the moment.
aren’t those same concerns about established talent relationships and less fear of reputational damage. It’s
“The worry comes with online creators where there aren’t those same concerns about established talent relationships and less fear of reputational damage. It’s already happening if you look for David Attenborough AI videos on YouTube. They’re already out there. The genie is out of the bottle.”
The tech has been used fairly harmlessly for
The tech has been used fairly harmlessly for comedic purposes – Gareth Southgate’s ‘alternative’ press conferences at Euro 2024 did brisk business on X – but there are already big concerns.
Sir David Attenborough
BOBBY, DANNY & ATLANTA TIM: AN AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER
HIGHWAY PATROL
AI start-up Dubformer specialises in delivering dubbing and voiceover services to the media industry and is using AI voices to do it. Voiceover artists can take their voice and suddenly speak any language in the world using the tech.
On the tech side, company founder Anton Dvorkovich says: “This is not a completely new issue in AI because the voice is just one aspect of human likeness and we’ve been dealing with deepfake visuals, photographs and videos for quite some time now. This kind of tech can be used for good and it can be used for bad. Fraud is the first thing that comes to mind. They could clone your child’s voice, ring you in distress and ask for money.
“It’s a powerful tool and to defend against it everyone needs to know about these possibilities. Education is absolutely crucial. Basically, with the current state of technology, you shouldn’t believe what you hear just as you shouldn’t believe what you see.”
The tech is so far being used mainly by distributors who want to internationalise their library and influencers/ content creators who want to reach a broader audience by speaking more languages.
Irina Divnogortseva, Dubformer’s head of media, adds: “First of all, we understand the responsibility. We understand we’re changing the market. We’re very transparent with our clients. We can clone the voice, that’s true, but all the rights are guaranteed by the producer and we have consent. When we do clone a voice, we guarantee it will only be used in the client’s content, nowhere else.”
Dvorkovich believes the traditional part of the content industry will recognise the intrinsic value of a celebrity voice and play by the rules. But, of course, in the wild west of social media it’s unlikely people will – and that presents a problem.
“The boundary between social media and traditional media is becoming blurred. A lot of companies that previously used to only do traditional media are exploring new platforms – mostly YouTube, but some are also starting production on TikTok. It will be interesting to see if social media becomes less and less like the wild west.”
arm of the BBC, shops Attenborough franchises like Planet Earth, Blue Planet and Frozen Planet, to which his voice adds considerable value. A Morgan Freeman voiceover elevates a project’s standing substantially and he can charge accordingly.
These organisations and people are not going to want to see that value drain away due to deepfakes. But equally, the BBC, Netflix and others may want to use the tech themselves to continue reaping those financial rewards once these icons have passed on. Freeman, who made The Story of Us with Nat Geo, is 87, Attenborough is 98 and another legend of modern voiceover, James Earl Jones, took his incredible baritone with him when he died in September – having licensed his Darth Vader voice to an AI company called Respeecher in 2022.
Muslim Alim, the BBC commissioning editor for daytime and entertainment, is a rare breed in that he regularly preaches the virtues of AI and encourages prodcos to dive into the tech, rather than urging caution and warning it’s going to kill the industry.
He says: “If you’re in the performance sphere you will have to think about every aspect of your likeness – your physical likeness, your visual likeness, your audio likeness and maybe even your thought process. That may sound a bit out there, but if you look at the assistants companies like Microsoft and Google are working on, if you feed into a model on a weekly basis it will get to know your personality and therefore almost act like you.
“What people will find acceptable in the future all depends on uptake. Would it be acceptable to do stu in the manner of David Attenborough or not? It would all have to be licensable, contracted, permissions given, etc. We’ve already seen actors getting scans of their bodies done so they can appear in more than one project at a time or not have to dedicate six months to filming one thing. Will that come to fruition or will people find it weird? The audience is going to be the judge of all this.
“Fire was the very first technology – very dangerous, but also very useful. So that’s the analogy I would use; AI is no di erent. [Some] people will be bad actors who will use it for the wrong reasons and it will do some amazing things as well.”
In the US, legislation is moving faster than elsewhere. Tennessee’s ELVIS Act aims to protect artists’ voices, names, images and likenesses from AI misuse. In September, California’s AB 1836 was signed, requiring estate permission to use AI to recreate a deceased person’s voice or likeness.
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Irina Divnogortseva Dubformer
Meanwhile, voiceover talent remains a big business. BBC Studios (BBCS), the commercial
We understand the responsibility. We understand we’re changing the market. We’re very transparent with our clients. We can clone the voice, that’s true, but all the rights are guaranteed by the producer and we have consent.
Nationally, the No Fakes Act protects individuals from unauthorised AI recreations, while the No AI Fraud Act targets cloning and impersonation. The ‘right of publicity’ also safeguards a person’s likeness, name and voice. However, in the UK, the Online Safety Act 2023 only addresses fake pornographic content. Existing ‘passing o ’ laws can be circumvented by disclaimers like those used by AISIS. Cases like The New York Times vs OpenAI may o er BBCS a route if it can prove its documentaries were used to train AI models to mimic Sir David.
models to mimic Sir David. It’s time to talk to a lawyer. Caitlin
and there is no raft of AI-specific
It’s time to talk to a lawyer. Caitlin McGivern, a senior associate at Harbottle & Lewis, says while there is no direct UK equivalent to the US ‘right of publicity’ and there is no raft of AI-specific legislation coming down the track, the country isn’t starting from scratch. “There are already a number of o used by AISIS. Cases like The New York Times vs
Morgan Freeman fronted Nat Geo’s The Story of Us
avenues that would potentially be open to someone to bring a claim to stop that kind of copycat voice,” McGivern says.
“David Attenborough could take action under a tort called ‘passing off.’ It protects him from somebody pretending he was involved in something when he wasn’t. There are requirements to bring a claim, such as proving there is goodwill in your name or voice, which for David Attenborough, as a household name, wouldn’t be too difficult to convince a court.
“There also has to be misrepresentation, so if the producer has been pretending David Attenborough was involved. But it could get tricky if the producer has been open from the beginning that it’s an AI voiceover that just sounds like him. It’s counter intuitive because it’s much cheekier, but it could offer more protection for the producer from a passing off perspective.
“If he can prove misrepresentation then he has to prove he has suffered harm or damage. If it was a controversial documentary about fossil fuels then, again, that could be easier to prove, given David Attenborough’s known positions on such issues, but if it’s just a poor documentary then that’s a matter of subjective taste and, again, could be tricky.”
McGivern also believes a claim for defamation could be brought suggesting reputational damage, depending on what they got the AI to say – for instance, using Attenborough’s voice to make out he had a change of heart about burning fossil fuels and that the climate emergency was a hoax. But again, if it was made clear the doc was using AI to generate the voice or it was clearly a parody it would be harder to successfully bring a claim. Bringing a claim under privacy laws would probably also rely on the voice being used to reveal personal details.
In terms of commissioners or producers bringing legal action in respect of AI-generated work produced using their scraped copyrighted Attenborough docs, McGivern points out that which entity is best placed to bring the claim may not be straightforward. Depending on the contractual arrangements between the talent, the production company and the commissioner, and who ends up with the IP rights or right to bring a claim, different entities may be better placed to bring potential legal action. Attenborough would likely pass his rights to the recordings to the prodco making the show and that company would then either pass it to Netflix or another studio or streamer if they’re engaged on a work-for-hire basis with that studio/streamer or license (rather than outright transfer) them to a PSB like the BBC.
“Given the volume of data involved on the input side and the lack of clarity about what’s happening in the machine, it would be very difficult to prove what was used to train it and who is best placed to bring a claim on that,” she adds. If BP wanted to produce a ‘spoof’ Attenborough documentary about how beneficial the oil company is to the life of sea turtles, it does seem there is little recourse to the law outside the US if it was made clear to the viewer it was a computer-generated voice and not really him.
It is starting to look like an ethical question rather than a legal one, which might be an appropriate place to bring in Deep Fusion – an AI-focused production company launched by Jamie Anderson and Benjamin Field last year. It started out by generating the appearance of Jamie’s late father, Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, for Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted and aims to make the ethical use of the technology its calling card.
“There’s a ‘could you do it, should you do it and is it legal to do it’ [question],” Field says. “The question of whether or not you own your own voice is new territory. I don’t know of any laws in the UK that would immediately stop you, but morally you’re immediately on the wrong side. It’s less a legal responsibility and more the responsibility of the filmmakers and the production company to do the right thing for the benefit of the industry and creatives.
“At Deep Fusion, we want to hold the ethical, moral high ground of saying we don’t do anything without full consent. The Gerry Anderson project was about recreating somebody’s face to go with some pre-existing audio. There is a very different conversation to be had when what you’re doing is making somebody say something they didn’t say.
“At no point during that documentary did we ever try to trick the audience. It was there in black and white that it was a recreation. If the audience knows that, actually, it’s not David Attenborough and you’re clear it is an AI recreation of David Attenborough’s voice, then you’re being honest about the dishonesty and moving closer to voice mimicry, akin to [impressionist] Jon Culshaw. The Anthony Bourdain example was just horrific because they took somebody’s voice, they made him say something he never said and they didn’t make that clear. The audience found out and they felt tricked.
“It’s about positioning. There is a world in which you can legally and ethically use a person’s voice, whether they’re alive or have passed, and create some new engaging content with that. But it’s about consent and how you present it to the audience.”
So can you? Essentially, yes. Should you? A deeply divisive question. Will you? Oh God yes, we’re about to be inundated.
Right: Attenborough’s voice adds gravitas to natural history series such as Planet Earth III. Below: Scarlett Johansson’s voice featured in the 2013 film Her
Benjamin Field jointly launched AI-focused prodo Deep Fusion
Nat Geo from above
Building an audience on YouTube is just one of the ways to work with the international arm of Disney-owned Nat Geo as it seeks new approaches to established genres.
know if you have any,” said Noot.
By Nico Franks
Even those working for National Geographic admit to being somewhat bamboozled by the inner workings of the unscripted giant. But its execs were on hand over the summer to shed some light on how the international TV production sector can work with the iconic brand.
Key members of Nat Geo’s London-based team –Sarah Peat, commissioning executive producer; Ben Noot, director of global acquisitions; and Alexander Lawson, development and production producer –were at Sunny Side of the Doc in France to explain how they help bring shows such as Europe From Above and World War II: Secrets From Above to screen.
Part of the media behemoth that is The Walt Disney Company since its acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019, Nat Geo’s global originals team is led by executive VP Tom McDonald out of the US.
This is the unit responsible for eye-catching series such as Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted and the Will Smith-fronted Welcome to Earth. Big-budget series with A-list talent that go direct to consumers and are available to stream internationally on SVoD service Disney+ as part of a ‘bigger, better, fewer’ strategy.
The international arm of Nat Geo, meanwhile, is primarily focused on content that will air on Nat Geo’s linear networks around the world and spans an array of subjects, including the Second World War, ancient history, air crashes and, of course, sharks.
The aquatic predators have long been big business for the National Geographic Channel and
its execs are looking for content for the 2026 edition of its annual Shark Fest
The month-long season of shark-themed programming airs on Nat Geo every July and with the 2024 catch already in the net, the company’s commissioners are eager to receive pitches for series and specials for future editions.
Noot told Sunny Side moderator Kirstie McLure, MD at Big Wave Productions, that Shark Fest is “potentially one of the biggest annual events we have on the main channel.”
“It’s four weeks of programming; fantastic shark content. We are now actively in the market for our summer 2026 stunt. We need sharks. Please let us
There are three main “pathways” through which producers can get a show on air with Nat Geo, explained Peat, who admitted it can be easy to get “lost” in the maze that is the Nat Geo system.
The three pathways are international, regional and global acquisitions, the latter of which is overseen by Noot, with all three focusing on linear-first shows that have the potential to be coproduced.
While fully funded commissions are the domain of its streaming operation, co-funding and coproducing are the order of the day for Nat Geo International.
For international, Peat is looking for programming with broad appeal, pointing to the long-running Cineflix series Air Crash Investigation, now in its 24th season. After all, the fear of, and fascination with, aviation disasters is universal.
“[We need] things that resonate in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa. That’s kind of a tall order, to find stories and content that makes all audiences happy. But if you can do that, the reward is pretty big,” said Peat, who joined the company in 2022.
“We’re always linear-first. We’re open to coproduction. We have ideas pitched to us that come with lots of money attached or no money attached. We’re funding-agnostic and we’re open to have conversations on how we get the budgets to where they need to be.
“Our shows need to work pan-regionally and they need to be returnable, repeatable and scalable. By scalable, we mean the ability of turning them into franchises and following different stories and different content under that title.”
Top: Europe From Above. Inset: Kirstie McLure with Nat Geo’s Alexander Lawson and Ben Noot (right) at Sunny Side of the Doc
Building Impossible With Daniel Ashville
One example of such scalability is UK-based Windfall Films’ archaeology series Lost Treasures Of… which has been expanded from its first Egyptian iteration to depict incredible moments of discovery in different territories, such as Rome and Arabia.
The copro saw Windfall Films acquire deficit financing from broadcasters such as Channel 4 in the UK and SBS in Australia, with Lost Treasures of Egypt going from an international copro to a global acquisition at Nat Geo, including an airing in the US.
This highlights the potential for shows to move from one pathway into another in “a model that works fairly regularly,” said Noot, who is looking for more programming in the history space, from the ancient to the early modern, to join the recently launched Pirates: Behind the Legend
“Coproduction has always been really important for National Geographic. I’ve been at the company for 11 and a half years and we’ve always been into coproduction, but now more so than ever. It’s an era of collaboration. The amount of finished tape I’m able to acquire these days is very minimal because people aren’t commissioning, but they are coproducing and we’ve been very flexible and agnostic about with whom we partner,” added Noot.
“Our focus is on linear series and for the number of hours we have to get we have to be very creative and collaborative dealmakers. Some will be USonly, most will be global, almost all will be coproductions.”
Another example of the latter is Northwood Survival, produced in co-operation with Amazon-owned Prime Video, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and Blue Ant in Canada.
Audiences want something that resonates locally. These regional funding pockets support local productions,” said Peat.
One example of the latter would be six-part military history series Defending Europe, produced by Atomic Television and focusing on Europe’s ancient military history.
“Viewers love to come to something that is relevant to themselves,” said Peat, who also spoke about the importance of programming featuring inclusive talent. Another Windfall Films production, World War II: Secrets From Above, for example, counted transgender woman Dr Lynette Nusbacher among its presenting cast.
“ Our shows need to work panregionally and they need to be returnable, repeatable and scalable. By scalable, we mean the ability of turning them into franchises and following di erent stories and di erent content under that title.
Sarah Peat National Geographic Int’l
For Peat, a show like Lost Treasures Of… “ticks so many boxes” for the broadcaster because it is “effortlessly international,” with archaeologists from around 10 countries.
That takes us on to the second pathway: regional, where Nat Geo peppers its schedule with programming targeted at specific markets.
“We have individual funding pots which are basically used to support local content because international obviously focuses very broadly on stories that will appeal to an international audience.
For Lawson, talent needs to be authentic and well versed but doesn’t have to come from an academic background. Take Building Impossible With Daniel Ashville, fronted by a construction enthusiast from the UK who caught the eye of Nat Geo after he built a following on YouTube for his own channel.
Lawson, a former producer who joined Nat Geo in 2017, is looking to develop repeatable, returnable series for linear, shows that can be “run in the schedule again and again” for which one can “instantly envision season three, four, five.”
“We feel we have a really good understanding of our core viewership. It’s slightly older, it’s slightly male skewing. Franchises like Air Crash Investigation, Ice Road Rescue and Lost Treasures of Egypt are really resonating,” said Lawson.
“As we’ve been doing this for a little while, there are certain genres that we have noticed rate particularly well: the ancient world, engineering, World War II, access disasters and anniversaries.”
For the latter, specials are of interest and producers are encouraged to think creatively. Nat Geo is well set for programming to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War next year, but they should think what other major anniversaries are coming up in 2026 and beyond.
“We tend not to have an awful lot of marketing budget for international, so it’s great if we can build on the awareness of globally recognised events,” said Lawson.
Great challenges, people doing astonishing things and captivating historical facts are all on the wishlist, while advances in technology and how they could help Nat Geo find new ways of telling these triedand-true stories are front of mind. Where once CGI was the hot new thing for making an unscripted series pop, it is now artificial intelligence (AI) that has piqued Lawson’s interest.
Meanwhile, the launch of Breakthrough Films’ UFOs: Investigating the Unknown last year on Nat Geo marked the first time the unscripted giant had touched the topic in around a decade. However, don’t expect Nat Geo to fall down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, as Lawson credits the involvement of bona fide investigative journalist Leslie Kean with justifying Nat Geo’s embrace of the extraterrestrial.
A reoccurring theme among Nat Geo’s non-US programmes is the mission to bring a new angle to well-worn topics, be it looking at ancient history from above using drone technology, using dramatic reenactments to bring history to life or finding a unique presenter to add a modern twist to an old subject.
Lawson summed up his role at Nat Geo, and what producers should always keep in mind when pitching projects, with a well-known phrase. “We have a saying in the UK: old wine, new bottles. We know the stories that we want to tell. We want to find new, contemporary ways of telling them that provide a different perspective,” he said.
Military history series Defending Europe
France Télévisions is on the hunt for ambitious documentaries that reveal history in new ways or help viewers imagine the future and, together with public service counterparts across Europe, is o ering support to develop them.
By Jonathan Webdale
Bringing the past to life
France Télévisions (FTV) is appealing to documentary makers around the world to pitch “audacious, innovative” projects focused on science and civilisation to populate primetime slots on France 2 and its factually driven channel France 5.
The French national public television broadcaster announced the latest round of its Global Doc initiative at Sunny Side of the Doc in La Rochelle in June, with the deadline for submissions set for in mid-October.
sought proposals for one-o 1x90’ films with scope for re-editing into 1x52’, 2x52’ or 3x52’ formats
Ancient civilisations, palaeontology, space exploration, geology and pioneering environmental science are all topics of interest, according to FTV director of international coproductions and acquisitions Caroline Behar, and especially projects that aim to bring the past back to life or help imagine the future.
“We want a powerful narrative and highly visual spectacular, an engaging and emotional approach that can also appeal to a younger audience. Please be audacious, be creative. We and our global partners are passionate to read your new projects,” says Behar.
“We really want the propositions to be truly innovative, using new technologies or artificial intelligence,” she adds, citing one of last year’s Global Doc winners, a film called Destination Moon: The New Space Age, as an example.
winning pitches.
The scheme, which first took shape in 2020 and gained the support of six other public broadcasters two years ago, has now grown to a collective of 10 with FTV at the helm, o ering funding, international expertise and exposure for FTV, along with Germany’s ZDF, the UK’s Channel 4, Canada’s CBC, Austria’s ORF, Sweden’s SVT, ABC in Australia, Italy’s Rai, Japan’s NHK and PBS in the US, have
Following NASA’s Artemis II mission to put people back on the moon next year in a bid to create a permanent lunar base by 2030, the project is currently in production. French prodco Zed, One Way Films and NHK, plus ZDF Terra X, SVT and the Philippines’ PTS are all on board as partners.
Last year’s other two winners were Lost Wonder of the World: In Search of the Lost Gardens of Babylon, from the UK’s Lion TV, focusing on a female archaeologist’s accidental discovery of the lost palace of Nineveh, exposed by underground tunnels dug by terrorist group Isis.
e want a powe ul narrative and highly visual spectacular, an engaging and emotional approach that can also appeal to a younger audience. Please be audacious, be creative.
Forest, meanwhile, from fellow UK prodco Windfall Films, looks at the vital role trees have in capturing carbon from the atmosphere. Both are due for delivery this year.
“We are keen on projects that are using new technologies in general,” Behar continues, talking more broadly about FTV’s programming priorities beyond Global Doc. She highlights Viking Women – the Untold Saga (1x90’), another show in the works with France’s Little Big Story and Sweden’s Nordic Eye Productions producing for FTV, SVT, Norway’s NRK and Denmark’s DR. This film, distributed by Zed, is made in partnership with French video games giant Ubisoft and includes reconstructions filmed inside the last Assassin’s Creed game, Valhalla.
“Through new technologies and with new scientists who are women, we can rewrite the story of women and the role they had to in this Viking community,” says Behar.
That show, in turn, follows FTV’s experience with Little Big Story’s first Ubisoft collaboration, the 2021 science documentary Lady Sapiens, which drew on the game Far Cry Primal for some of its scenes.
“It’s been a massive phenomenon for us,” says Behar. “It was kind of a #MeToo of prehistory storytelling, because this was formerly told by male scientists, and the show was really rewriting this story using wonderful footage from the video game.”
FTV has repeated the film several times on its networks and the video game crossover has also helped draw in younger audiences – a fact that has encouraged the network to pursue other such projects.
The Lost Castle of Azuchi (1x90’) is a documentary in the works for FTV’s primetime Grand Format science slot on France 5 next year, which taps into Ubisoft’s new Assassin’s Creed game, due out in November, exploring 16th century Japan. France’s Gedeon Media Group and Japan’s NHK are partners, and again, the hope is to lure in young gamers and manga fans.
FTV dedicates 20% of its commissioning budget to projects targeting younger people and this mission is key, says Behar, as the pubcaster, like others across Europe and beyond, is facing changing audience behaviour, financial pressures and a general malaise in the TV market.
“Because of budget cuts, people are really focusing now on international coproduction, setting it as a pillar of their strategy,” says the exec.
“Global Doc is really an alliance that helps big, ambitious projects to happen. It’s all about co-creating, sharing our
expertise, our intelligence, learning from each other, and generating added value from different cultures. We are 10 broadcasters now, and we are all there to think about the best way to make things happen in the future, in a world where we are challenged by budget cuts within our organisations and by big competition.”
For FTV, some of these issues are pressing. Prior to French president Emmanuel Macron’s surprise announcement of a snap election in June, culture minister Rachida Dati had already pushed through a plan to merge the pubcaster with Radio France and INA, the country’s national audiovisual archive, to create a new entity called France Médias, dubbed by some a ‘French-style BBC.’
“The role of public service broadcasters has never been so important,” says Behar. “We have a geopolitical slot that sheds light on the new equilibrium of the world and it’s very important to understand the deep mechanisms of all these changes, on the evolution of the planet, so we are really staying focused on that.”
Indeed, FTV recently acquired a 3x60’ docuseries produced by the UK’s 72 Films made for the BBC and distributed by Fremantle about Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky, which it will air in its Le Monde En Face docy strand as a 70-minute film later this year.
Factual remains a key tenet of the French network and just as well for the producers who rely on it for commissions. By some counts, FTV and other pubcasters account for up to 50% of all investment in documentaries across Europe but despite this vital commitment, Behar recognises the situations of many filmmakers are dire in the context of a broader global TV downturn.
“Producers from all countries are struggling so much, but I think the conviction is sometimes stronger than the struggle and they make these projects because it’s essential for them to happen,” she says.
“Global Doc is a facilitator and if we can help these projects have more visibility, spread by 10 broadcasters at the same time, even if they are not the winners, it will still facilitate their work.”
A maximum of three projects will be selected by a jury composed of representatives from each broadcaster and these winners will be named at the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers, taking place in Marrakesh, Morocco from December 9 to 12. Each will receive a commitment from the broadcast partners to finance their ambitions as far as possible.
“ Global Doc is really an alliance that helps big, ambitious projects to happen. It’s all about co-creating, sharing our expertise, our intelligence, learning from each other, and generating added value from different cultures.
Caroline Behar France Télévisions
Above: Lion TV’s Lost Wonder of the World: In Search of the Lost Gardens of Babylon. Right: Science doc Lady Sapiens drew on the game Far Cry Primal for some scenes
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They say timing is everything and for the UK’s After Party Studios that could certainly prove to be the case. Founded in 2016 by YouTube creator Callux (Callum McGinley), the company offers creative insights and strategy, production and distribution for brands, content creators and legacy mainstream media companies.
As the older broadcasters scramble around wondering where their audience and advertisers went and begin to chase after them, a one-stop solutions shop that bridges the two worlds could make a killing.
MD Joshua Barnett says: “We have that start-up mentality but we’ve started to establish ourselves over the last couple of years within the wider traditional media landscape outside of just digital. We’ve grown up and matured a bit this year.”
Alongside the branded content and ads, work in the world where “traditional meets YouTube” is moving fast. The company is a frequent collaborator with Sky Sports on projects such as Scenes and League of ’72. The latter includes a fledgling TikTok channel that attracted one million likes in its first week, in addition to the existing YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Instagram and X content.
Also in the works is a new project for Channel 4.0 called Hear Me Out, following the success of last year’s doc The Cost of Being a YouTuber Barnett, who previously worked at broadcasters such as ITV, adds: “We’ve always been quite keen to really sit in the crosshairs of where YouTube meets mainstream and pull those worlds together. Frustratingly, it’s taken ages and traditional [broadcasting] should have been taking more from the digital side for a lot longer than it has now.
“There was more talk about digital than ever before at the Edinburgh TV Festival this year, so hopefully TV can embrace working with companies like ours, get in the right mindset and build a bright future for both sides. It’s not about digital knocking out traditional, it’s about sparking change and bringing worlds closer together to thrive because there are so many people out of work right now on the TV side that have amazing transitional skills for our side.”
Company co-founder and director Ben Doyle also had a more traditional background, at creative agencies like BBH and its in-house Black Sheep
Three-Year Plan A er Party Studios
London-based A er Party Studios is looking to harness its experience in viral social and branded content to grow its reach in the traditional media space. By Clive Whittingham
Studio. A lot of his advice for traditional players looking to crack YouTube is around thinking about titles and thumbnails, shareability on WhatsApp, not topping your programme with the same opening sequence as you would on a linear channel and producing consistently and in volume so the algorithm likes you.
Most of all, though, he wants to banish the idea in the traditional space that “social is a dirty word.”
“We want to bring the best bits of digital into the TV world because we think there is a lot that can make it more agile and make the money go further,” Doyle says. “We were speaking to a TV production company recently that got paid £200,000 [US$262,000] to produce a gameshow pilot. I couldn’t believe that. For that money we could do a
whole series on YouTube that will get more viewers than a pilot which won’t go anywhere.
“These people are slowly realising you can access audiences quicker, in a more agile way and keep improving and testing as you go by reading the YouTube comments or looking at the viewer retention graph.
“Floor Is Lava came out on Netflix two years after Floor is Lava was a trend on TikTok. That audience had grown up – they were 14 at the time, now they’re all 16 and too cool for you. That ability to move quicker to produce things that are timely and relevant to catch audiences is the key here. It’s our job to make brands and commissioners see you can move fast in a safe way, that still ticks all the boxes around compliance and legal.”
After Party’s three-year plan, according to Barnett, is about building out established relationships with players like Sky, Channel 4 and Netflix, and pushing further into the TV commissioning world. But also tapping into the exploding trend for branded content, which looks like it’s going to be a crucial pawn in traditional media’s fight back against rapidly declining revenues and budgets.
“Brands are going to need to build up brand affinity, brand fame and really strike a chord with an audience over and above just the ads that we’ve been forced to watch for too many years now,” Barnett says.
“The recent Billie Eilish piece with American Express was engaging content that didn’t feel like advertising. That’s where the world is moving.”
Joshua Barnett (left) and Ben Doyle