Factual programming continues to be a mainstay of traditional TV, but there’s no question it has come under severe financial pressure in recent years.
Could partnerships with digital-first producers and distributors provide an answer? The Drop investigates
While Netflix continues to have substantial budgets for factual – especially true crime and access docs – most broadcasters and streamers have either cut the number of factual shows they commission or reduced their licence fees.
The challenge for producers was graphically illustrated in 2024 when Banijay Entertainment decided to shut down famed factual label RDF Television. At the time, Banijay’s UK chief Patrick Holland said: “The kind of mid-range factual content that used to fill terrestrial channels has disappeared from the commissioning market.”
The prevailing response to this squeeze in factual TV has been to pursue co-production partnerships involving two or more broadcasters, a deficit-financing distributor and any soft money up for grabs. But one area that has largely remained untapped is the fast-growing factual channel business on social platforms.
You only need to scratch the surface of the web to see that millions are flocking to factual content on channels like History Hit, Free Documentary, Underknown, Fern TV, Atrocity Guide, Veritasium and LADbible. And then there is the growing cohort of channels being launched by TV heavyweights such as Banijay Entertainment. So the question is – can this emerging ecosystem be part of factual’s financial solution?
The answer is a qualified yes. While today’s roster of YouTube channels is unlikely to displace ZDF or NHK as co-production partners on the next BBC Natural History Unit epic, there is a growing appreciation that traditional and digital-first platforms can be happy bedfellows on low to medium budgets.
“We’ve been working in this area for a long time,” says Quintus Studios CEO Gerrit Kemming, whose company is both a factual content distributor and a YouTube channel operator. “There are opportunities for collaboration, but producers need to realise there is no standard business model. Because the market is constantly changing you can enjoy success with one approach then find it doesn’t exist six months later. In the last three years, we have probably used 10 different ways to finance factual productions.”
Key to Quintus’ flexible model is the fact it straddles both digital-first and traditional. By combining a distributor’s mindset with a channel operator’s access to audience, the company has partnered with several traditional players. Last year, for example, it joined forces with A+E Networks EMEA on Missing, Presumed Dead – a 10-part series produced by Spirit Studios. In this case, A+E took rights in several key markets while Quintus played the series out on its Free Documentary Crime YouTube channel.
In parallel, it has also fired the starting gun on several projects – greenlighting them as Quintus Originals for its own channels, before taking them out into more traditional distribution afterwards. “Here, we start with a commissioning brief which is based on the core buckets of content that we know are performing well on our channels. We send that out to a pool of film-makers that we have worked with in the past. If they come up with an idea we like, our creative director Adam Jacobs can greenlight it.”
Kemming acknowledges that the fee offered at this stage of the process is quite tight, but stresses there is financial upside for the producer once the show is made and starts gaining traction on the channel. “We’ll always support the hard costs of production, but the profit typically comes at a later stage.”
Quintus is not alone in seeing scope for collaboration between traditional and linear in the factual arena. Back in October, Passion Distribution’s digital division UpStream Media revealed that it is teaming up with production company Middlechild to create original, digital-first content, “designed for today’s on-demand audiences”. The slate will feature a mix of specials and series, like 41 Dogs, which will air across UpStream YouTube channels such as OMG Stories, Filth, and Origin.
The originals will explore subjects such as people rebuilding their lives post-incarceration; the resilience of young mothers navigating financial hardship; and the hidden waste that lies beneath Britain’s waterways. Nick Rees, chief operating officer at UpStream Media, says: “As well as creating content for our channels we’re hopeful this collaboration will also uncover new talent and scalable formats.”
Hearst Networks UK digital commissioning editor Sam Pearson is also exploring new models around channel brands Sky History, Crime+Investigation and Blaze. What began as AVOD uploads of archive content has evolved into a full-scale commissioning strategy that plays in both vertical and horizontal video formats and straddles everything from Snapchat and Instagram to Sky’s own on-demand platforms.
Take History Crush, for example. Hosted by TikTok star and historian Katie Kennedy (pictured) , it’s a snappy, tongue-in-cheek interview format designed to work equally well on Instagram Stories as on broadcast VOD. “It’s produced with a quality that could sit on TV, but structured for social,” Pearson explains.
Spirit Studios creative director Matt Campion says his company’s IP360 division was launched to take advantage of the opportunities for collaboration between the two sectors. “IP360 is about turning original ideas into multi-dimensional brands that can generate digital revenues, unlock brand collaborations and drive distribution sales.”
An example, he says, is Outsmarting, a series about survivors who have managed to turn the tables on their assailants. Originally a 10 x 10’ series for C4’s YouTube channel, Outsmarting was reimagined as Outsmarting Evil, a 6 x 60’ series, with support from Quintus. “The digital version was essentially a simple but well-paced talking head series,” says Campion. “We also made a podcast that used an AI host, news clips and experts. For the TV version, we took the same talking heads and added elements like archive – so now it looked like a fully-fledged documentary.”
Campion says Spirit is close to forging an ongoing partnership with a TV company based around this IP360 model – but can’t yet share details: “Essentially, we will make social first documentaries and podcasts in a particular genre and our partner will have first look deal with a view to securing a TV version. Assuming there is a TV version, that gives us a series that can then go into international distribution.”
It’s clear from the above that two key camps are emerging – distributors with digital channel real estate and producers with the expertise to scale up productions from digital to TV. But what hasn’t yet fully evolved is the notion of YouTube-first channels as co-production partners – ie YT channel A stumping up 20% of a show’s budget in return for a set of regional rights. Banijay Rights’ VP digital Shaun Keeble agrees this could be a future model – if channels build sufficient scale. But, for now, he says a more fruitful angle for digital-first factual channels might be bringing brands into the process.
“We’re building channels on YouTube like Banijay Documentaries that have significant reach. When you own real estate like that, then there is potential for brands come on board as partners for ideas that fit their objectives – particularly now we’re seeing a lot more YouTube viewing migrate to Connected TV.”
There are, of course, differences between the two camps that can act as a barrier. Creator-led company Underknown, for example, has established itself as one of the leading producers of digital-first factual content. To date, it has amassed 75 million followers for brands including What If, How to Survive, Animalogic, and Aperture. It also launched a FAST channel based on magazine Popular Science.
Underknown co-founder and CEO Steve Hulford says the studio now has 50 full-time creators producing content for its channels. “Our four flagship brands are active across platforms and in different languages, which gives us 100 monetisable channels.”
It’s a successful model that moves to the rhythm of the social audience and algorithms. “Our business is a bit like catching a wave,” he says. “Ride the wave properly and it will take you all the way to shore – but if not, you’re dead in the water.”
Illustrating what he means, he describes how the balance of Underknown’s revenue shifted away from Facebook towards YouTube. He also says the style of content has evolved: “When we started, I intentionally wanted to build faceless content brands, so we weren’t beholden to talent and could translate easily into new languages. But now the platforms give you more distribution if there’s a human talking to the screen.”
These rapid shifts are one reason why it is not easy to collaborate with traditional TV producers. “Our shows might look similar to traditional TV documentaries, but the way they come to life is different,” says Hulford. “In the case of television, you have a concept that’s based around an intuition. You build a pitch, go to 100 commissioners, 99 say no. One says they like it, but they’d rather have it set somewhere else. That whole process takes a year, and then you spend another year producing the show. In that time, we have made 50 hours of programming for our channels.”
In a sense, this brings the question of collaboration back to a recurrent theme, which is that digital-first companies don’t always feel the need to engage with traditional media. While there is scope for collaboration, it needs to begin with the realisation that many digital media studios have cracked the code – and are building viable businesses away from TV. As Hulford notes, “We own the rights to our content and are generating substantial revenue, without having to answer to commissioners.”
This feature originally appeared in issue 1 of The Drop magazine
