Rich in history and culture; and with cities adept to technological advancements, the Asia-Pacific landscape maps out golden opportunities for the development of factual content. Reality-factual entertainment are more typically taken to the international markets but Asia-Pacific covers more specialist factual – covering science, natural history, history and culture. Here are some highly esteemed programmes developed from daily incidents and happenings, creatively thought through with inspiring storytelling notion.
China’s geography and culture across 20 provinces, cities and regions, a two-part documentary special, China From Above went rival after its premiere raking in 130 million views on Tencent. The series documents ancient monuments, traditional customs, breathtaking landscapes through a combination of innovative aerial photography and on-the-ground, human stories.
In December 2015, Turner commissioned Beach House Pictures to produce an original production profiling the Singapore Botanic Gardens as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A World Icon: Singapore Botanic Gardens will premiere on Turner’s recently launched World Heritage Channel in Asia. The 60-minute special is produced in 4K and features epic time-lapses coupled with slow-motion sequences.
Some factual programmes carry a human-interest aspect with it — covering tragic events or focusing on issues with a poignant appeal to it. Such content have the ability to raise awareness to areas of concern (e.g. social and environmental issues) and encourages its viewers to take action.
With aims set on igniting curiosity and on the global front, people to take action fighting wildlife trafficking, reducing carbon emissions, supporting green causes and eating less meat, Discovery embarked on a global social activation effort last November. The comprehensive worldwide initiative and campaign focuses on species conservation tied to the landmark film, Racing Extinction.
Following the November 2015 Paris attacks that left Paris in a three month state of emergency, HISTORY Asia premiered the quick turnaround documentary, Terror: Seven Days In Paris. The hour-long special follows two camera teams in the week following the violence that shook Paris. Produced by NBC Peacock Productions, the special will provide exclusive footage of the dawn siege by police in the Parisian quarter of St. Denis, as well as interviews with witnesses to the killings, medical personnel, the owner of the Bataclan concert hall and Paris-based international terrorism experts.
The Nirbhaya rape incident in 2012 was a widely popular topic across most mainstream media. The outpour of anger and grief following the incident resulted into a worldwide protest for change in India and other countries. Mid-December 2015 saw Viacom18 adopting award-winning documentary, Daughters of Mother India which explores the aftermath of the Nirbhaya rape incident in 2012.
Produced by Academy Award winner Maryann Deleo and directed by National Award winner Vibha Bakshi, the 45-minutes documentary studies the effect of the incident on the collective psyche of India. The documentary has been adopted as a training film by the Indian police academy and various education institutes in India, to sensitize on treating women with respect.
Challenge: appealing to the new generation
With eyeballs going to a variety of platforms, the on-demand model is increasingly popular among the techsavvy generation. Paying for what you want to watch and having the freedom to watch when you want to is incredibly attractive to this generation, as they rarely follow a structure.
Also, dramas with an intricate story-line and comedies where everyone laughs at are much more appealing to this generation, as factual content – with a more serious tone to it, are not as exciting to them. There is a need to pull this specific group of audience to want to watch factual programmes, but how?
Derren Lawford, Joint Creative Director, Woodcut Media says, “As long as your content is available via as many screens as possible and is free at the point of access, then as a producer you can stay relevant. However, the definition of factual content for children is much broader and invariably includes pictures, podcasts, games and online tools etc.
“That said, those who can curate all those different editorial elements into one service and distribute that to as many screens as possible, will keep factual producers relevant. That’s why the emergence of something like the BBC’s iPlay is particularly pertinent.”
Founder of Viddsee, Derek Tan adds, “Viddsee shares diverse Asian stories that range from narrative to factual via our web and mobile apps. What we do is to surface local stories to more young people. I believe the digital landscape creates new opportunities for us to curate new stories and allow us a community of audience worldwide to share our Asian stories.”
Factual on the global-scale
Having killed over 8,000 people and injured more than 21,000, the April 2015 Nepal earthquake was the worst natural disaster to have strike Nepal since 1934. Produced by Sky Vision Productions for Sky 1 and National Geographic Channels International, The Day Everest Shook (1×60’) combines footage from several teams on the ground in Nepal, expert testimony from world-renowned scientists, UGC footage and CGI to illustrate the anatomy of an earthquake and how and why this happened.
In October last year, DRG had announced the acquisition to the worldwide rights to My Son The Jihadi. The one-off documentary tells the shocking story of an ordinary British family whose eldest son had left for Somalia to join the deadly jihadi terrorist group, Al Shabaab. The documentary was filmed over a ninemonth period, premiering to viewing figures of 1.3 million.
Western factual content ranges from reality-factual content and specialist factual- both of which performs well even on foreign land.
“The problem we see is not that Asian factual content is less popular, but the lack of accessibility and discovery to our Asian stories,” comments Tan. “Through Viddsee BUZZ, we come in to give context and relevance to communities- helping to create a huge lift in audience in local markets and across markets to spread the stories wider.”
Asia-Pacific’s efforts In May last year, FOX International Channels (FIC) and the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) announced its latest initiative, the FOX Formats Lab. The initial phase of the initiative will see content created for the National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo People.
The FOX Formats Lab initiative is a developmental platform aimed at enhancing skills and encouraging knowledge sharing from experienced professionals within FIC’s global network to aspiring local talents. Participants have the opportunity to tap into the global expertise of FIC executives to hone their skills, learn about the factual content development process at NGC, and ultimately better position themselves to work with international broadcasters in the future.
In October last year, BBC Worldwide launched BBC Earth. The channel is based on the strengths and heritage of BBC’s factual content- from natural history and the human world, to outer space and science. The channel will be supported by the BBC Natural History Unit (NHU), which produces 100 hours of television — one of the largest wildlife documentary production houses in the world.
“As long as people are seeking content that entertains and educates, then factual television will remain a hardy perennial in people’s schedules. The emphasis is on people’s schedules as opposed to channel’s schedules, as where, when and how people are consuming factual content is as varied as it has ever been. That diversity of platform and habits is also creating interesting creative opportunities for factual producers,” Lawford says.
