INTERNATIONAL www.VideoAge.org A videoconference interview with Aurélie Reman (pictured), managing director of Sunny Side of the Doc, produced some additional information on a topic difficult to evaluate at a global level — the documentary business and its various business models. The video call was coordinated by Philippe Le Gall, media coordinator for the 37th annual documentary market, which will take place June 22-24, 2026 in La Rochelle, on France’s Biscay Bay. This year’s event has been condensed to just three days (from the usual four), and has a reduced budget of 1.5 million euro (or U.S. $1.77 million), 32 percent of which was provided by public funding. That the event is taking place at all can be considered somewhat of a It looks like the turquoise hue of Croatia’s Adriatic Sea turned out to be better than the muchvaunted blue waters of the Danube, since, after just 13 years of existing, the New European Market (NEM) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, is taking over the Central and Eastern European (CEE) TV market region from the 33-year-old News about more expensive flights to int'l TV events Francis Ford Coppola paves the path to Paradise in a book Media evolution in Hungary under new Peter Magyar regime My 2¢: Daytime TV should be programmed by generation Page 16 Page 6 Page 4 Page 3 THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF FILM, BROADCASTING, STREAMING, PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION June/July 2026 - VOL. 46 NO. 5 - $9.75 The Challenging Documentary TV Business Model Explained Behind the Scenes At Los Angeles Screenings 2026 NEM Sans NATPE Makes a Splash (Continued on Page 14) (Continued on Page 10) (Continued on Page 8) For the past 63 years, the L.A. Screenings — originally called the “May Screenings” — followed a predictable pattern. First the American TV networks presented their new seasons’ series to advertising agencies and brands in New York City. Then, the U.S. studios that produced or distributed the new programs would show the content to international buyers in Los Angeles. If, at first, the Screenings were somewhat informal gatherings, with the passing of time, they UGLY
3 My 2¢ June 2026 MAIN OFFICES 216 EAST 75TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 TEL: (212) 288-3933 WWW.VIDEOAGEINTERNATIONAL.COM WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG VIALE ABRUZZI 30 20131 MILAN, ITALY EDITOR-in-CHIEF DOM SERAFINI EDITORIAL TEAM SARA ALESSI (NY) BILL BRIOUX (CANADA) ENZO CHIARULLO (ITALY) LEAH HOCHBAUM ROSNER (NY) SUSAN HORNIK (L.A.) CAROLINE INTERTAGLIA (FRANCE) OMAR MENDEZ (ARGENTINA) LUIS POLANCO (NY) MIKE REYNOLDS (L.A.) MARIA ZUPPELLO (BRAZIL) PUBLISHER MONICA GORGHETTO BUSINESS OFFICE LEN FINKEL LEGAL OFFICE STEVE SCHIFFMAN WEB MANAGER BRUNO MARRACINO DESIGN/LAYOUT CLAUDIO MATTIONI, CARMINE RASPAOLO © TV TRADE MEDIA INC. 2026 Many young people feel fed up with their phones. Here’s an enigma inside a riddle, or better yet, a catch-22: How can you get elusive young viewers (those who text while crossing a busy road, or obsessively watch YouTube) to tune in to legacy broadcast television without losing the reliable old viewers (those who still use business cards and “dumb” flip phones)? Let’s review the historical facts. Older viewers were gradually introduced to the telephone, then the television, and finally the Internet. It was a slow but sure familiarization process. They didn’t grow up with all of them at once. Meanwhile, younger viewers were raised on smartphones, which are part telephone, part television, part camera, part game console, and connected all the time. Despite this, according to an April 5, 2026 New York Times Magazine article, “many young people feel fed up with their phones.” Even though the Internet was created for the U.S. military in 1969, it only became popular in the 1990s after the introduction of web browsers. E-mail entered the picture in 1971, but wasn’t widely used until the late 1990s. Indeed, Time magazine named the personal computer its “Machine of the Year” in 1982. The telephone was invented in 1871 by the Italian Antonio Meucci on Staten Island, New York, who called it “a speaking telegraph,” but it wasn’t popularized until 1876 by Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell (although this was contested by the American Elisha Gray. Sadly, by that time, Meucci was out of the picture since he didn’t have the money to renew his patent). Television was invented in the U.K. and the U.S. simultaneously in 1927 and popularized in the U.S. in 1949. YouTube (now owned by Google) was introduced in 2005, and these days, Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) prefer to consume content on YouTube more than any other media. The smartphone made its debut in 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone, while cellular telephony (or the mobile phone) was invented in 1915, but not popularized until 1990. Wi-Fi (or wireless Internet) became popular in 1991. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of American teenagers with access to a smartphone jumped from 23 percent to 37 percent between 2011 and 2012, and by 2024, 95 percent of young American adults (18 to 29 years of age) had smartphones. In view of all of those developments, my opinion is that the worldwide legacy broadcast daytime schedule should be divided between Gen Z programmers and Baby Boomer programmers, each responsible for catering to their TV audiences’ tune-in times and TVwatching devices. Dom Serafini Worldwide legacy broadcasters should embrace TV programmers that cater to both Gen Z and Baby Boomer viewers, so that broadcast TV can compete with smartphones and YouTube.
4 leader Peter Magyar, declared that there will be a complete regime change in Hungary. Billboards denouncing the European Union and Ukraine, once common across Hungary under Orbán-era political campaigns, have largely disappeared. One EU official reportedly remarked that Vladimir Putin’s ‘delegate’ (meaning Orban) no longer sat at the European Council table. In addition, Hungary’s flagship newspaper, Magyar Nemzet, was reportedly ordered by a court to stop calling Peter Magyar “a bug who must be exterminated.” M1 (Em Egy), the main state TV channel, which never used to feature Tisza’s candidates, has started to give the new prime minister airtime, while private broadcaster TV2 Group has fired its Orban loyalist news director and canceled the anti-Tisza program, Tenyek. On May 10, 2026, The New York Times reported that the Center for Fundamental Rights, which sponsored the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, received government money through a foundation controlled by Orban’s Fidesz party, prompting the new prime minister to say that “CPAC can come to Budapest, very welcome, but not with Hungarian taxpayers’ money.” In 2025, members of the international television industry explored whether Hungarian government-backed cultural institutions, including the National Film Institute and the Palace of Arts (MÜPA), might help support the struggling NATPE Budapest television market. The effort did not succeed, and in April 2026 NATPE Budapest announced it would close after 33 years. The new media landscape in Hungary is less a revolution than an evolution. The real transformation actually came before, when now former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban returned to power in 2010. Nicknamed “Viktator” by many critics in Europe, Orban quickly consolidated influence over the Hungarian news media, in addition to most of the country’s businesses, the judiciary, regulatory agencies, and even the prosecutors’ offices. When Orban’s Fidesz political party lost the national elections on April 12, 2026, and the Tisza party gained a parliamentary majority, the new prime minister, former Fidesz member and current Tisza Media Evolution in Hungary Under Peter Magyar Leadership VIDEOAGE June 2026 World SEE FULL AGENDA
6 Francis Ford Coppola Paves a Path to Paradise By Luis Polanco Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats had the meticulous and likely torturous habit of repeatedly revising and re-envisioning poems he’d already written. When he reprinted two early books of his poetry — The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems from 1889 and The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics from 1892 — in 1895’s simply titled Poems, all of the poems had been rewritten. Yeats continued to revise the poems in subsequent reprints up until 1929. To his friends, who saw how time-consuming and obsessive his extensive revision process was, Yeats had a rejoinder: “The friends that have it I do wrong / When ever I remake a song, / Should know what issue is at stake: / It is myself that I remake.” This quatrain, a stanza of four lines, was included in an edition of Yeats’ collected works published in 1908, and it hints that the pleasures of creating, rewriting, and revising are all mixed together and grounded in selfdiscovery. These lines from Yeats serve as the epigraph to Sam Wasson’s The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story (400 pgs., Harper $32.99), an ambitious book of biography and film history that covers Coppola’s career as a filmmaker, anchored primarily in the making of Apocalypse Now, released in 1979, and his dreams for the production company American Zoetrope. The lines from Yeats function as a motif throughout The Path to Paradise, echoing at various points to remind the reader that Coppola has embodied the ethos behind them, using his creative work to reinvent himself anew. Wasson is the author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., about the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s; The Big Goodbye, about Roman Polanski’s Chinatown; and Fosse, a biography of the legendary director and choreographer. With The Path to Paradise, Wasson’s masterful touch as a storyteller is well suited to telling the tale of the ebbs and flows of Coppola’s career. Wasson is unafraid of expressing his deep reverence for his subject, leading to some moments of striking grandiosity, especially when commenting on Coppola’s contributions to cinema: “Francis Ford Coppola, leader, driving force of Zoetrope, sacrificed more than the normal man’s share to improve the world, the lives of the people in it, one filmmaking community at a time.” Wasson’s larger-than-life characterization of his subject is apt, once the reader is reminded of the highs Coppola reached with the critical and commercial success that he enjoyed from his breakthrough as a co-writer on the war drama Patton up through the tremendous achievements of The Godfather and The Godfather II, and the lows he faced the following decade with the box-office disaster of his subsequent films and the public collapse of one of the first iterations of American Zoetrope due to debt. Within this grand theater of Coppola’s career, certain characters weave in and out, each playing the role of friend, collaborator, and sometimes foe, ranging from his wife Elinor, whose artistic life is also portrayed in the book; his daughter Sofia, also a filmmaker; George Lucas, his protege turned commercial superior; and Jack Singer, who had loaned $3 million to Coppola for One from the Heart (which did not do well at all) and subsequently sued Coppola and purchased the San Francisco, California lot where American Zoetrope was located when it went to auction in 1983. One of the poles of the book is the making of Apocalypse Now. Loosely adapted from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now is a woozy epic war film set during the Vietnam War about one Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, who embarks on a mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. Wasson’s portrayal of the time is enticing and chaotic. Coppola filmed in the Philippines to recreate Vietnam, renting helicopters and planes from the Marcos, facing inclement weather and typhoons, and dealing with the increasing diva demands of Brando. Coppola had honorable aspirations for American Zoetrope. Wasson writes, “He would develop a training program for under-represented Zoetrope employees of the future. He would rent out space with no overhead charge to producers. He would offer two acting tracks, one for contracted actors in his repertory company, the other for freelance talent. He would do the same for writers and directors.” Wasson goes on and on elaborating on how Coppola would have wanted to carry out his vision, which sounds like utopia. In its early days, Zoetrope Studios consisted of “[n]ine soundstages, a few office bungalows, a mill, two project rooms, editorial facilities, executive and production buildings, grip and electrical storage, a paint shop…” Despite its reality at the time, the studio did accomplish Coppola’s dreams. “More than a production company,” Wasson writes, “it proved to be a heightened awareness for all, a path to new frontiers of life and film.” Coppola had the idea for the film Megalopolis since the early 1980s, and had tried to make it twice before he was finally able to complete it for its 2024 release. The film tells the story of an idealistic architect who has plans to revitalize New Rome, a city that resembles an alternate 21st century New York City, into the utopic Megalopolis. The parallels between the movie and Coppola’s journey with his studio become crystal clear in Wasson’s account. On the set in the studio outside of Atlanta, Wasson captures the then-84-year-old filmmaker’s diligence. Recalling Yeats’ line, “It is myself that I remake,” Coppola tells him, “I’m not making the film. It’s making itself.” Wasson’s book wonderfully conveys the filmmaker’s view that paradise is found in the process. Film historian Sam Wasson chronicles the acclaimed filmmaker’s career, charting highs and lows, from the making of Apocalypse Now to his dreams for American Zoetrope. Francis Ford Coppola, leader, driving force of Zoetrope, sacrificed more than the normal man’s share to improve the world. VIDEOAGE June 2026 Book Review
(Continued From Cover) 8 NATPE Budapest, which closed after last year’s edition. Even The Wall Street Journal, the New York City-based financial daily, can now be counted among the NEM market’s supporters, with an April article that hailed Dubrovnik as an ideal spot for data centers. Dubrovnik will be hosting the annual New European TV Market (NEM) June 8-11, 2026, at its traditional venue, the Dubrovnik Palace Hotel. More than 1,000 participants from 300 companies — with about 200 TV buyers and 108 content distribution companies (versus 100 in 2025) — are expected to be exhibiting, showing growth from previous years. According to official figures, the market has grown by 50 percent (as compared to 2025). Last year, to accommodate the extra participants, exhibition space was expanded to engulf a large portion of the Dubrovnik Palace hotel lobby. This year, the market has added a new space for exhibitors: the all-new Adriatic Area on the tenth floor of the Palace hotel. This is in addition to the Sunset Area (on the ninth floor) and the Mare Area (on the tenth floor). Doors will open at 9 a.m. on Monday, June 8, and will remain open until 8 p.m. that day. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the market will open at 9 a.m. and will close at 6 p.m. On the last day, Thursday, June 11, the market will open at 9 a.m., but will close at 12 noon. All the major U.S. studios are participating even though, according to a Paramount Global spokesperson, “We are sending a small team to NEM.” Similarly, all the 10 major Turkish distribution companies will be exhibiting, while smaller ones will be under the Turkish Content umbrella. Some Turkish companies, like Global Agency, will be at NEM despite saying that “we need to save our budget for now.” International content distributors reported to VideoAge that they appreciate the networking opportunities to be had at NEM, with many noting that the scenic, casual setting is perfect to meet with buyers from the Adria region and the Baltics, as well as to hold meetings with reps from CEE’s digital platforms. To Maria Kivinen of Finland’s Norsekey Distribution, “NEM is now becoming the main meeting point between buyers and sellers in the CEE region.” Added László Fülöp, AMC Global Media’s Senior Acquisition and Contract manager, Kids Channels: “From [my] perspective, it is positive that NEM is filling the gap [left by NATPE Budapest] and evolving into more of a true market rather than just a conference. At the same time, as someone based in Budapest, I feel that the CEE TV industry is missing a dedicated Budapest-based market, as it had for many years. I am confident that these developments will also make NEM increasingly important — and likely more expensive in the near future.” Fülöp went on to explain that “over the past few years, June has become the most crowded month for TV markets, but this dynamic has shifted this year. NATPE Budapest, first rescheduled from late June to April, was eventually paused. This already signaled a change in the market landscape, as several European buyers, sellers, and producers who had not previously attended NEM expressed their intention to participate this year. The subsequent cancellation of Content Warsaw in early June further reinforced this trend, and NEM is now expecting significantly higher attendance than anticipated.” Multiple networking events will be taking place during the first three days at NEM, included a welcome reception, a happy hour, a party on day two, and a closing party at the Lazareti, which is located in Dubrovnik’s old city. And, according to an official press release, there will be “more than 80 speakers contributing increased depth and perspective to a lineup directly shaping the agenda, [an agenda that] reflects the key forces shaping the media industry today — from structural change and evolving business models to new approaches in content, distribution, and monetization, as well as adaptation to technology, consolidation, and changing audience behavior. It also places strong emphasis on leadership, decision-making, and the long-term relationships that drive the global content business.” In addition to a number of panels and showcases, three keynote sessions are on this year’s agenda — to be delivered by Sam Barnett, CEO of Central European Media Enterprises; Jens Richter, CEO, Commercial & International, Fremantle; and Henning Tewes, CEO of Antenna Group. László Fülöp, AMC Global Media Asli Serim of Calinos Entertainment at NEM 2025 Inter Medya’s Sinem Aliskan and Hasret Ozcan at NEM 2025 Kanal D International’s Onay Devrim and Sangerim Zhakhina at NEM 2025 “These developments will make NEM inevitably more expensive in the near future.” — László Fülöp VIDEOAGE June 2026 NEM Preview
(Continued From Cover) 10 became very important to both the U.S. studios and international TV buyers, to the point that most TV outlets around the world began sending some 14 or more executives to Hollywood in May. Nowadays, the number has been reduced to a maximum of four per TV outlet, making the current Screenings an event with some 700 total buyers at most, down from its peak of 1,700. However, what has not changed over the years is the elaborate new content presentations, as reported to VideoAge by one former top-level U.S. studio executive who asked to remain anonymous. “The arrival of clients and the L.A. Screenings themselves are very carefully orchestrated,” he said. He further explained that “the various studio organizations behind the L.A. Screenings function like a script that is constantly being revised, with the speakers on stage memorizing every single word of their presentations and rehearsing for hours on end, as if they were about to make their theatrical debuts. There is a specific script that everyone has, and it must be adhered to scene by scene. It is, quite literally, like a screenplay.” He then continued: “When, in the view of studios’ sales executives, the new series being presented fall short of expectations, hours would be spent figuring out how to ‘package’ the product — making it appear better than it actually is. In addition, marketing experts would brief the sales teams on the specific phrasing to use for their pitches. “At times, clients who might have left the screening room disliking a series would often change their minds after spending some time during the lunch break with a member of the cast — especially if the talents are famous. In America, celebrities are very willing to participate at the L.A. Screenings because they understand that the sale of the series they star in is at stake — and, by extension, their own longevity within the industry,” he concluded. This year, for the 100th anniversary of Universal studios, NBCUniversal showered buyers with posters of the studio’s greatest TV talents. At the Paramount theater, the studio put up a display of costumes from its top shows. Before the Disney party on its lot, the studio screened The Mandalorian and Grogu, the big screen version of the fourth season of the Star Wars TV saga. Inside a packed Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Lionsgate screened new content before bussing buyers to a party at the Santa Monica pier (as Santa Monica is also Lionsgate’s home base). Michael Bonner, president, NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution, said that 500 clients were expected over the course of his studio’s three screening days. Don McGregor, president, Paramount Global Content Licensing, said that he welcomed 700 international clients across his studio’s two days. The difference in the number of buyers was attributed Lionsgate International TV president Agapy Kapouranis The Disney Entertainment LatAm team welcomed international buyers on the studio lot Paramount Global Content Distribution president Kevin MacLellan “Buyer attendance remained strong, with the right decision-makers from across the globe in the room.” — Jennifer Ebell, Fifth Season VIDEOAGE June 2026 L.A. Screenings 2026 (Continued on Page 12)
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(Continued from Page 10) 12 by some international acquisition executives to the fact that, this year, there was poor coordination among the studios, with some screenings conflicting with others. But according to Jennifer Ebell, EVP, Television Distribution, Fifth Season, “Buyer attendance remained strong, with the right decision-makers from across the globe in [the] room. While conversations happen year-round, L.A. Screenings offers a valuable opportunity to meet face to face. Even in a cost-conscious market, it continues to draw the people who matter,” she said. How different these L.A. Screenings were from the 2025 edition could be easily ascertained by looking at the list of pilots in the May 2025 and 2026 issues of VideoAge. There are 19 for the 2026- 2027 broadcast TV season and just five in last year’s guide. The number and days of screenings for this year also increased, while the number of indies exhibiting at the hotel (this year, the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, yet another new venue) remained stable at 55. Going back to the Upfronts, Monday, May 11, the start of the networks’ presentations, was a busy day in New York City, with NBC and FOX. ABC followed on May 12 at the Javits Center, while CBS held smaller Upfronts earlier, in April, in Los Angeles. Canela’s Upfront presentation for its Hispanic advertisers was also held on Monday, at the Avra Restaurant in Rockefeller Center, which was across the street from NBC’s Upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall. FOX’s Upfronts were staged at the New York City Center. Moving over to the indies, the big news circulating inside the SLS Hotel, which this year housed the L.A. Screenings Independents, was the sudden departure of Darío Turovelzky as CEO of Telefe, which he helped make into Argentina’s most popular broadcast TV network. Telefe was acquired in October by the local media holding company Grupo TV Litoral from Paramount Skydance. When VideoAge asked both buyers and sellers about the new venue, the SLS Hotel (a favorite of Portugal football/soccer ace Cristiano Ronaldo), which replaced last year’s Roosevelt Hotel (which, in turn, superseded the Century Plaza Hotel), the general opinion was favorable. However, before committing to another year, L.A. Screenings organizers sent out a survey among participants to solicit their opinions. In terms of exhibitors — split between hotel suites and meeting tables — the number listed on the board by the elevators remained the same as last year at 55. However, according to official figures, the total number of companies was 107, including those firms that replaced other companies that canceled at the last minute (such as Ledafilms), and those who attended without registering or exhibiting. The exhibitors listed on the board came from 12 countries, in addition to the U.S. Also significant was a large contingent of members of the Latin trade media, who were in L.A. together with a sizable group of U.S. public relations agents. As for the number of TV content buyers, it has been reported that this year’s L.A. Screenings event attracted over 700 of them to the studios. Many — an estimated 180 (mostly from LatAm, with a few from Hispanic Canada and the U.S.) — were at the SLS Hotel for the indie portion, which started briskly on Thursday, May 14, but slowed down on the second and final day, Friday, May 15. Even though the L.A. Screenings Independents market ended on May 15, Argentina’s Telefilms held down the fort with its own screening and party on the following day at the SLS Hotel. The Telefilms’ gathering was held at the same time that the major U.S. studios started their own screenings and parties on Saturday, May 16, 2026. The studios’ events ended on Wednesday, May 20, with Disney’s LatAm screenings, which were held on its studio’s lot. Finally, returning to ex-Telefe bigwig Turovelzky, the unconfirmed rumor circulating at the L.A. Screenings Independents was that his days at Telefe were numbered after he aligned himself with his old boss Gustavo Yankelevich, who also bid to buy Telefe from Paramount, but lost to the current owners. Isabella Marquez (r.) and Lissette San Martin coordinated the indie segment of the L.A. Screenings Inter Medya's Sinem Aliskan and Beatriz Cea Okan Calinos Entertainment's Goryana Vasileva and Cristina Duffy Michael Bonner, NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution president, posed in front of a portrait of iconic detective Columbo. VIDEOAGE June 2026 L.A. Screenings 2026
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14 (Continued from Cover) miracle since cancellation seemed imminent as of December 2025. To explain a little about Sunny Side’s funding, Reman had this to say: “The 2025 budget was slightly above 1.65 million euro, so the drop year-on-year is just over 10 percent. The more telling comparison is against our historical baseline. In editions supported by Creative Europe MEDIA, the reduction is close to 20 percent. The absence of European funding is the main structural factor. We’re hopeful that support will return for 2027.” Reman was, obviously, only able to speak to her own June documentary event, which consists of a festival, a market, and a conference, and is expected to draw some 2,000 participants from 60 countries. Eighty-two percent of that total will hail from Europe. Conferences at Sunny Side will revolve around international co-productions and international sales. In addition, stated Reman, the documentary business is not stagnant, but always moving forward, especially with an increased number of wildlife productions, as well as an abundance of new TV outlets (like FAST channels) that are constantly being introduced. When asked about other documentary topics, she said that “political documentaries are too risky to produce” because TV outlets are reluctant to air them. As far as how documentaries are financed, “the public sector is still essential,” she explained. According to Indiana University, there are approximately 68 documentary festivals around the world, and the global market for television documentaries was reportedly valued at $12.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $15.8 billion by 2030. With 15 documentary festivals, the U.S. leads the pack of the 36 nations that host such events, followed by Canada with nine such festivals, then England, France, and Spain with three each. Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mexico, and Poland have two doc fests each. The remaining 26 countries, that span from Chile to Indonesia to Nigeria to Morocco to Latvia, have one such fest each. Most of the doc fests are held in the month of March, followed by April with 13 events, and May and October with 10 each. The least favored months are January, August, and September, with one each. Reiner Moritz, founding president of the Munich and London-based Poorhouse International, and a leading expert on music documentaries, seems to concur with Reman. “There is an insatiable appetite for the natural history genre,” he said, “although every animal or landscape on the planet has been filmed time and again. Social items and portraits of pop stars are en vogue.” He said that he would define most political content “as reportage,” going on to explain that “legendary British filmmaker John Grierson defined documentary as a ‘creative treatment of actuality.’ But now documentary might best be defined as an agreement between actual people to be creative.” In addition, Moritz said that “prices range from seven digits to hundreds of dollars per hour according to subject matter. If one takes the last figures of MIPDOC there must be about a thousand buyers worldwide. Most documentaries go to public service media, but streamers are also interested in topics of general interest when well made and/or attractively fronted.” He then concluded: “The idea of sponsorship usually collides with truth, as a motive for underwriting is usually self-serving.” According to Pasadena, California-based Ettore Botta, president of SpaceWoW, “acquisition license fees depend on the region. There are big differences between North America, South America, and Europe, also in terms of style and thematics. Unfortunately, the documentary acquisition in the U.S. is very complicated. In the last few years there have been several attempts by all kinds of producers, studios, and streamers to launch documentary channels in the U.S., [but they] fell apart [or were] suffocated by sensationalist TV and especially reality TV programs. In Canada, the CBC announced that they would close down their doc channel but increase their documentary production budget. We would need to see what their program strategy is a bit further down the line. In the U.S., Amazon, Roku, Tubi, and Future Today, pay ‘peanuts’ rev-share for docs,” he concluded. Similarly pessimistic is a European producer and distributor who asked to remain anonymous: “I stopped looking for new documentaries from other producers and instead focus on our own doc productions because what buyers want is hard to find, and because, out there, valid documentaries to distribute are too few. Adding to this is the economic crisis that touched the doc business, and you can see why it is more advantageous concentrating on our own productions.” To Hervé Michel, a former French broadcast executive and past head of TV France International, “documentaries, even though the genre is very important, remain a niche genre. This is why in Europe, it’s mainly aired by public service TV and in late night slots, bringing less attention than mainstream programming like dramas or game shows.” Still, cautioned Michel, “one has to pay attention to its content (investigation and touchy subjects might be banned in some territories), its format (some markets only take series, some others only one-offs), and the budget dedicated to its production.” However, a silver lining in the documentary business appeared following the recent announcement that the Los Angeles-based production and distribution company, Insurgence, teamed up with global documentary producer-distributor, New York City-based Big Media, to launch 60 YouTube documentary channels. (By Dom Serafini) “There is an insatiable appetite for the natural history genre.” — Reiner Moritz Reiner Moritz, president of Poorhouse International Wardens, a Big Media doc series, will launch on YT thanks to a partnership with Insurgence. VIDEOAGE June 2026 Doc Biz Model
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16 The Usual Bad News About More Expensive Airline Ticket Prices Airline ticket prices will increase worldwide as jet fuel costs continue to rise. In the U.S., even though the recently shuttered Spirit Airlines accounted for just 3.4 percent of the market, its collapse put upward pressure on ticket prices. The low-cost carrier shut down operations after failed bailout talks with the Trump administration. Nonetheless, flight prices are raising nationwide, with domestic airfare up 15 to 20 percent and international flights increasing seven percent to 14 percent, according to travel analysts. In March alone, U.S. airlines spent $5.06 billion on fuel, up more than 56 percent from February. It is estimated that U.S. airlines will lose $12 billion this year because they’re trying to avoid passing most of it off to customers. NEM DUBROVNIK June 8-11 Dubrovnik, Croatia Tel: (+385) 1 6408 310 www.neweumarket.com BANFF June 14-17 Banff, Canada Tel: (+1 416) 408-2300 www.banffmediafestival.com STREAM TV SHOW June 16-19 Denver, U.S. Tel: (+1 774) 247-4048 www.streamtvshow.com SUNNY SIDE OF THE DOC June 22-24 La Rochelle, France Tel: (+33) 5 4655 7979 www.sunnysideofthedoc.com VENICE FILM FESTIVAL September 2-12 Venice, Italy Tel: (+39) 041 521 8718 www.labiennale.org TIFF MARKET September 10-16 Toronto, Canada Tel: (+1 416) 934-5834 www.tiff.net Recognized standard of quality in Audio Description descriptivevideoworks.com With more than 40,000 television shows, feature films and LIVE shows completed, you can rely on us to deliver your project on budget and on time. Our technical expertise guarantees a top quality product - a commitment we’ve made to our clients for more than 20 years. Descriptive Video Works is committed to providing access to all forms of visual media Request a Quote info@descriptivevideoworks.com VIDEOAGE June 2026 Event Planner
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