Digital Docs panel - TellyCast Digital Content Forum 24 | TellyCast Podcast

In this TellyCast episode, we bring you the Digital Docs panel from the TellyCast Digital Content Forum, recorded live at BFI Southbank on 7 November 2024.

In this session, we dive into the world of digital-first documentaries with a fantastic group of panellists who are each making waves in the industry. Moderator Sam Barcroft and the panel explore what it takes to succeed in the digital documentary space—whether it’s finding the right niche, driving growth, or generating revenue on digital platforms.

First up, we have Serena Brown from B1M, whose YouTube-first approach has turned her channel into a go-to destination for all things architecture and construction. Joining her is Yusuf Omar from Seen.TV, a company built on mobile journalism, reaching millions of viewers and focusing on stories that mainstream media often overlooks. We’re also joined by Ben Zand from Zandland, a producer with a knack for storytelling that brings fascinating, under-explored subjects to light across multiple platforms. And finally, we have Gerrit Kemming from Quintus Studios, a digital documentary pioneer, who shares how they leverage their extensive network of creators to produce compelling content for both online and traditional broadcast channels.

Each of our panellists has carved out a unique path in the documentary world, and today, they’ll be sharing their experiences and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. If you’re curious about the future of digital documentaries or you’re looking to break into this field, this panel will give you valuable insights into creating and growing digital-first doc brands.

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Transcript

Welcome to TellyCast, the content industry podcast show. I'm Justin Crosby. And today we're bringing you an exclusive panel discussion from the TellyCast digital content forum recorded live at the BFI South Bank on the 7th of November, 2024. This is our Digital Docs panel sponsored by Quintus Studios. In this session, we dive into the world of digital first documentaries with a fantastic group of panelists who are each making waves in the industry.

Moderator Sam Barcroft and the panel explore what it takes to succeed in the digital documentary space, whether it's finding the right niche, driving growth, or generating revenue. First up we have Serena Brown from B1M, whose YouTube first approach has turned her channel into a go to destination for all things architecture and construction.

Joining her is Yousef Omar from SceneTV, a company built on mobile journalism, reaching millions of viewers and focusing on stories that mainstream media often overlook. We're also joined by Ben Zand from Zandland, a producer with a knack for storytelling that brings fascinating, underexplored subjects to light across multiple platforms.

And finally, we have Gerrit Kemming from Quiddity Studios, a digital documentary pioneer who shares how they leverage their extensive network of creators to produce compelling content for both online and digital. and traditional broadcast channels. Each of our panelists has carved out a unique path in the documentary world, and today they're sharing their experiences and the lessons they learned along the way.

If you're curious about the future of digital documentaries, or you're just looking to break into the field, This panel will give you valuable insights into creating and growing digital first doc brands. For videos featuring the movers and shakers of the content industry, just search TellyCast TV on YouTube or click the link in the episode description.

Let's get started with a digital docs panel from the TellyCast Digital Content Forum live now. at the BFI South Bank. 

Welcome to the BFI. Great to be back. I wanted to just say thank you very much to the panelists for getting here. We've got 20 minutes. I'm not going to talk very much. My name's Sam. I started uploading documentaries with my colleagues to YouTube in 2006, uh, made shows for the TV networks and for Netflix and Facebook Originals and Snap Originals and people like that.

So I've been around the digital doc space for quite a while, but I'm really excited to have people. On this panel, who figured out ways of making brilliant businesses in the kind of digital first documentary space. And hopefully today we can inspire you guys, uh, to figure out how you can improve and, um, grow your businesses.

I now work at a company called Creatorville where we support, uh, leading video, um, and media brands to, uh, grow their video businesses. Um, and so I'm really keen to find out some of the tricks that these guys have got up their sleeves. So. Firstly, coming to Serena. So Serena, tell us what you do at the B1M.

Yeah. So, um, I'm head of content at the B1M. If you haven't heard of us, we are a YouTube first channel that talks about the built environment. So that's architecture, construction, basically how we shape our environment and then how that in turn shapes us. So, um, we also have, you know, Podcast, social media, short, vertical, like everyone else at this point, but we're primarily YouTube documentary.

And you 

fucking love a skyscraper, don't you? We love 

a skyscraper. All of them. Yeah, yeah. So if 

you've ever wanted to know about skyscrapers, lock in. Yeah. So how do you guys make money? 

Uh, 50 50 between, well not 50 50, AdSense is a bit rubbish sometimes, but YouTube AdSense obviously, but primarily through sponsorships and partnerships.

So either being commissioned by companies to come to their. Skyscraper or different building and construction site or just the, you know, 60 second integration within a video. 

Okay, so it's really interesting. So you're basically tight with the brands. Yeah. And you've got your own audience making you money just by showing up and watching.

Yeah. Yeah. We're really. hard in that um, AEC industry, so within construction. So we have a lot of sponsorships that um, are quite unique to us because we're quite trusted to know what we're talking about when it comes to construction. So we'll work with some of the big construction companies, Skanska for example, um, to get there, so.

And so what do they see a value in paying you money to be in your videos for? 

I think it's the fact that if you work within construction, like nobody in this room, but if you work within construction, you definitely have heard of us and follow us and we're quite. Sort of dialed into that industry. So it's the fact that you can have, if you, if you have a building that you want general public to learn about, there'll be a lot of general public watching, but also you're reaching the direct audience that you're looking to reach.

So other, you know, purchasers and business owners within that space. 

So it's really interesting. So you're getting. punters like me that love a building and you're getting people who work in construction who care about, you know, is my skyscraper better or bigger than your skyscraper? Yeah, wicked. Okay.

What do you think in niche factual, which are you, cause you're doing docs about buildings. That's kind of niche, right? There's not going to be a cable channel. You're not going to see much of that on BBC three or two or anywhere else, are you? So what do you think is the trick to doing really well? In terms of like getting something that does do both things, get you a general audience and provide something that's really specific.

I think you have to cater to people who know way too much about the subject and way more than you. And also people who No, absolutely nothing at the blag it. 

So you can't 

blag it. Um, and you just have to be very, I think you have to be trusted and authentic. So, um, Fred, who's, who started the B1M and who presents everything, he has a background in architecture and construction.

We have a charity we run to help with mental health and construction because it's really, really awful. Um, so everything we do, we sort of live and breathe it. So I think the fact that you're seen as a really trusted resource and we're the number one subscribed to construction channel. So we saw the scene as, thank you.

Um, as seen as knowing what we're talking about. So I think as long as people can trust you, then they'll listen to what you have to say. 

Good stuff. Okay. That's really interesting. I'm going to come back to shortly. Yusuf, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here. You come all the way from America. 

I was in the US for the elections.

Yeah, but I'm based in Australia. Sorry about that. Yeah. Okay. Um, so, uh, tell us what you do. Yeah. My name is Yusuf Omar. I'm the co founder of Scene TV. We were actually born during the last Trump election, where we felt that the media were totally out of touch with stories on the ground. Same in the UK. Who thought Brexit was going to happen?

Nobody, because they weren't listening to real people and real stories. We basically trained 20, 000 people in 140 countries how to tell stories with phones. We call them mojos, mobile journalists. And then we started curating their content into shows. We've got 12 shows on platforms like Snapchat. We've got about 8 million subscribers and those subscribers have generated about 9 million in, well, 18 million.

We get half of it. So 9 million in programmatic ad revenue. 

Right. Okay. And so, um, What kind of subject areas does Scene TV, uh, make shows about? 

Stigmas and taboos. So, we have a show called Scene Survivors, which looks at domestic violence and, you know, sexual assault survivors. We've got Scene Minds, which is a mental health show, Scene Health, which is looking at unusual health conditions, like a woman that's allergic to water.

Um, but we're increasingly finding that And where we've found success in these stigmas and taboos is, is really unseen audiences. So, for example, we realized really early that doing stories on menstrual hygiene is so important and has such a large base. And because You know, organizations like the BBC and others are run by, you know, later aged males who don't menstruate often, um, they, they, they, they don't touch these topics.

They see them as a, to be honest, like, well, why is that a stigma off the world's population does this. Um, and I think we leaned into that space and in doing so today, 70 percent of our audience are 13 to 24 year old young woman. Um, so yeah, we found a gap in, in unseen audiences. Okay. Amazing. And how'd you make money?

Initially, we made money through programmatic ads. So on Snapchat and Facebook and YouTube, we'd play videos and earn money from the ads in between. And that was really a game of retention. How do you keep people watching for long enough? But what's really exciting over the last three months is we're now starting to see a membership model emerge where our audience are paying us directly for our content.

And that's the most exciting thing in the world because. That means we don't have to do the algorithm thing. We don't have to be a sensationalist or as click baity as we have historically been for the last seven years. Um, why do they give you money? They give you money because they, maybe they want to see their worldview represented in content around the world.

Maybe they feel that media organizations don't accurately represent. The types of content that they want to see. Um, I mean, I'll take this into a diversity perspective. For example, I come from a Muslim background, right? They make up 2 billion people around the world. One third of humanity. They don't have a Disney.

They don't have a Netflix. They don't have. Many media organizations that cater to that base. So when stories like Gaza have emerged, when Palestine's emerged, there is a massive audience that are like, Hey, fuck this. All the media organizations are not telling, are not representing my worldview and they're willing to pay media organizations who are.

Interesting. So you're kind of addressable audience is probably that younger demographic 13 to 25, 26 in, um, In kind of underrepresented spaces, is that right? So you might have a billion or two people in that demo that aren't that are very underserved. 

Yes, and your Gen Z's across the UK and the US are also aligned with those values, right?

They're more inclusive, they're more understanding. Uh, so, so you bring in that, that group and those, that group happens to have a very high CPM. 

Interesting. So on programmatic, they're hard to reach, right? 

Yeah, they're are to reach, so like on, on Snap, we, we are seeing this week, for example, like a $19 CPM.

Wow. Which means that a piece of content, good old 

days are back again. Really? Yeah. 

What it means is a piece of content that's costing us, because remember, it's, it's usually UGC, right? It's citizens that are creating the content. So it's costing us, say, two or $300 to produce is generating a hundred thousand dollars.

You can't make that kind of money without taking your clothes off. Like there's a, there's a really, 

there's laws, 

but what I'm saying is like, there's, there's a really interesting opportunity there. 

Yeah. Great. A big margin. And, um, that's fantastic. Thank you. Um, right next, Ben, welcome. Nice to see you congrats on your new child.

And, um, Uh, tell us all about what you do, Ben. 

Yeah. So I run Zandland. Zandland is a kind of multi channel production company. Um, I mean, not too dissimilar to yourself, you know, we kind of try and get into the, uh, less seen sides of the world and told stories. We tend to meet unusual individuals, uh, and kind of understand them, find middle ground.

Uh, I mean, I used to work for the BBC for years as a journalist. to get an access to interesting people and realize that, you know, I could do it myself. I could set up a team. So, so much of what we do is just incredible access on the ground reporting raw. Um, and effectively, you know, we work across, I suppose, very traditional TV things, you know, so we pitched to the likes of Netflix and discovery channel and peacock on streamer content.

We work in the UK. Um, we'll. We kind of basically do everything, you know, we'll work in the UK, pitch to UK producer channels. We'll also do stuff that we've self fund and then work with distributors to sell. Uh, so we're doing a feedstock at the moment in that sense. And then we do digital content, either outright commissions through TV channels or brands, and then we do some content.

Kind of that we self produce to kind of build the brand. So your company's got ADHD. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we just effectively, I mean, it's tricky. I mean, this is kind of each day of my life is trying to figure out where the hell we focus. And ultimately we have the kind of core, which is we get great access to people who have fantastic stories and you can sell that in many different places in many different forms.

Yeah. So that's kind of the center. Your USP. 

So your USP is amazing storytelling and being kind of. incredible worlds, right? Yeah, exactly. And then you take that and you, and you do that for lots of different folks. 

Yeah. And I'd say that, you know, why do people come to us? People come to us because we genuinely can get access to people that you wouldn't usually get access to, whether that's, you know, someone with an incredible true crime story that could be a multi part series, either on digital or on, uh, you know, streamer for millions of dollars or to a drug lord in Mexico, 

you know, and it's kind of.

So, so you're a child's, you know, First birthday party. You're not going to invite anybody. Yeah, exactly. Only the drug lords. Yeah, of course. Can 

I ask a question? You regard yourself as a production company. I'd say a studio slash production company. How did you make that decision between like production versus being the publisher and saying, Hey, come to watch it with us?

Well, initially it was to be a production company because that was, you know, it's like, Oh, how do you make money? And the simplest way to make money is this. I will give this person an idea and they'll pay me for that idea in a kind of TV sense. Now, a hundred percent, the kind of trajectory is as a studio, you know, and whether that's a studio in the sense of we all self fund content that we create, whether that's like a, you know, a feature doc that we find a way to make for a little bit of money.

And then we sell it in TV sales or we place it on our platforms and. Get advertising revenue, but that's, you know, for us at this point, you know, we have like nearly a hundred thousand TikTok followers and, you know, 30, 000 YouTube subscribers, cause you haven't really, you know, we've only started to prioritize earlier this year.

So the kind of actual short term way to make cash is through brand partnerships, which we're doing, we're doing kind of multiple digital series of brands, um, through TV sales of content that we create either through acquisitions or commissions, and then it's just building that. to the point of what you, you know, of exactly what you're saying, which is a subscription model with some kind of individuals who want independent minded TV, I mean, kind of digital journalist content.

So I think what's, what's really interesting is like, um, there's so much of a demand for, for journalism online. You know, you have Andrew Callahan, you know, this guy, like, you know, this kind of whole, you know, A world of young people going out and seeing the real world and making money from it and having huge amounts of subscribers.

Um, but you know, with the collapse of vice and, you know, the mainstream media organization kind of reputation suddenly going down within that kind of youth organization, youth, youth generation, there's such a major opportunity in that space. Um, the key is how the hell do you make it for a very little amount of money so that you can then make Make a profit.

Make 

the margin. Yeah. And that's what Yusuf was alluding to when he was saying he's getting people to make something for 300 that he gets a hundred grand for. Yeah. If we could do that on every video for 

sure, that'd be 

fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Ben. That's great. And just quickly on the brands, how do, how do you make that work with brands?

Do they come to you? Do you go to them with an idea, you know? 

Yeah. It's a combination of both. So like the way, I mean, to be fair, people have just come to us, um, quite a lot over the last year for that kind of, um, do you think that's a growing opportunity for producers? A hundred percent. Yeah. It's interesting.

Cause you know, we actually do a lot of, I suppose you could say, anti branded content in the sense of we investigate brands. Yeah. It feels like a kind of weird, uh, so for a short time I was like, Oh shit, you might've just lost a lot of money that we can make. Uh, and we don't want to move away from that because we are effectively a generalist organization.

Um, but the reason people have come to us is because they want. On the ground, edgy feeling content that actually works. If you're a branding, you want something to feel real and raw and authentic and have that kind of documentary sensibility. Um, there's, you know, that's a, that's a very appealing. So, so far it's been brands reaching out to us.

And now we've just started kind of having conversations with brands. Say, if we want to do a, you know, we do a lot of travel, current affairs y content, you know, could North Face sponsor that, you know, to kind of make a multi part series. 

Brilliant. And, uh, look, I think you've, you know, you've got a business when people are contacting you rather than you're contacting them.

So congrats to getting to that space, but broadly your business model is. You come up with an idea. Someone pays you up front to make it essentially keep some money out of that hop. 

We come up with an idea and we say, where can this live? Yeah. Um, um, you know, we all think about it for Netflix because, you know, if you're not going to deal with Netflix, um, if it doesn't work for Netflix, we'll think about it for, you know, a podcast or it's just that idea can live in so many different spaces, right?

When you're in those spaces. 

Yeah. Good stuff. Okay. Thank you very much. Garrett, tell us about what you're doing at Quintus 

Studios. Um, well, I'm CEO and founder of Quincy Studios. And Quin Studios comprises the Quince Channel Network, which is one of the biggest, uh, professional or let's say long form documentary, um, video channel networks, uh, on YouTube, Snapchat, and Facebook.

Mm-Hmm. Um, and then there is Quince Productions, which is all our financing, co-production, production activities, commissioning, uh, um, activities. And there is Quinter's distribution, which sells our stuff and also third party content into the still old, good old 

traditional linear 

world. 

Okay. So you broadly make and then sell TV shows and also distribute them online and publish.

Well, yeah, online and even linear, yeah, right. So we're, so we're coming from the TV space. We, so I started Quintus as a, as a distribution agency back then into 11, but then from, let's say to 14, 15 on, we grew into being a channel network. So this is the absolute Pryo and the focus and meanwhile, whereas like years ago, we were always producing only for TV and then maybe had the chance to take that content, put it on our channels.

It's now the opposite. We're producing. We flipped it. We're producing for our channels and sell this. As a second window to 

wow ok so you and your colleague adam a creative director will come up with an idea for a show that you would like on your channels on your youtube channel free documentary what five six seven million subscribers on youtube.

Yes on the channel network has it has about fourteen to fifteen million 

okay great so and then you will find a way your commission. a production company or a director to 

go the way out usually works is that we know our buckets that work really well on our channels and we we so far only producing to the spikes which is big enough range of production topics right yeah and we we have a growing network and actually um adam think he's in the audience built this up so we have a growing network of really talented filmmakers all over the world They know what's working for us, whenever they have access to a story that should work for us, they come and pitch it to us.

Adam says, yes, that's a cool topic. Then we commission them as a, sometimes it's a one man band, sometimes it's a, it's a indie, like, very lean production company. They produce it for us. Adam is monitoring and overseeing it. And then, uh, we put it on our channels and again, uh, putting it or selling it to the linear world or the streaming world.

When I 

started doing that, people would say to me, I don't want this shit. It's been on fucking YouTube. Everybody that wants to watch it has seen it already. I'm not fucking buying it, probably. 

But 

they still say that to you. Now they have to come to play with you. Now they have to be humble and stop being idiots.

The world is big and our core footprint, I mean, we, we do global. Uh, global distribution on YouTube, obviously, but we also have our core footprint, which is mainly the English speaking world, uh, parts of Asia and, and parts of Europe, but there's still, let's say Germany, France, and other big territories, TV wise, big territories, that is not our main or core footprint, and we can sell into those territories and also, I mean, go co exclusively in territories which are our core, uh, our core lands, or if it's like real big money coming from the linear, we would also say, well, you take it first, we take it second.

Okay, so you do retain some flexibility, but you're using language as your kind of barrier for on sales rather than territory sometimes as well. 

Yeah, well, both, right? Depending on which world you're in, right? Okay, great. The digital world, it's more languages. In the linear world, it's still 

territories.

Yeah, brilliant. Okay. And so I would say you're kind of the exemplar in this space of people who've cracked the code of how to bring the cost of documentary, TV documentary production down to a level where you can afford to finance it in first, you know, as originals for your own channels, and then make that investment back and make profit out of selling it into normal TV channels Uh, broadcasters around the world, as you would admit, Paul.

Yeah, as you said, 

so that's, that's the, luckily on both sides, you know, they came close to each other. So on the one hand, there is the potential of making money on YouTube with the growing network that we have, but on the other hand, we have to. Bring down the money or the cost for production. Okay, 

yeah, and that's the truth of it.

If you want to go digital first, you have to bring the cost right down and that enables the upside. But the 

interesting thing is that even though you bring the money down due to like lean structures. Maybe smarter selection of the infrastructure of production and technology you are able to produce on this budget, on this quality.

Yeah. Great. So Serena, how do you scale from where you are now? Because you, it sounds like you fucking own this shit. You're the queen bee. How'd you actually. Take your business up the next level. 

We've talked about it. Um, and it's something we are looking to do. I think it's just not making a massive leap from where you are, like knowing what you're doing.

So like you said, we're doing construction architecture. If we opened a channel randomly talking about gaming, it would be really confusing and people would, our audience wouldn't be aligned with it. So what we do is we look at. You know, other channels, our audience is looking at, we're looking currently to move into sustainability, which is an absolute hornet's nest on YouTube.

The comments are ridiculous, but we think it's an important space and something that's really aligned with us. So I think it's just about making sure that you're still sort of staying in your lane in a way. Like I mean, just to the side, just build out, don't just make a massive leap. 

Yeah. Great stuff. So Yusuf, um, somebody said to me here, how many kind of, Your, your, your model is like a guardian model, like people contributing into to help make the stuff.

Is that what's going to really scale your business next? 

I think so. I think we're going to go longer form, deeper forms of engagement, more interactivity. Like a lot of us on this panel are talking about using, like going for the Netflix. And then if it doesn't work out going down, we're the opposite.

We're like, we'll start with the one minute. And be like, Oh shit, people like that. Then we'll do three. They like that. Then we'll go 10. Then we go 30. Then we go an hour. So start the investment small, get good data and signals in. And we're just doing that at a massive scale. We've published 5, 000 films. So loads, loads of data, incredibly low cost, high volumes.

And then make those investments. 

Okay. Then, um, What do you think is the key element of with all the things you're doing at the moment? What's the thing that you're most excited about in the marketplace? The opportunity that's opening up for you that you think is going to power all those different things going forward for XAML?

I mean, as you said a little bit, um, the company's ADHD. So, so many things are exciting. I'd say, um, the, that kind of, uh, the fact that it's so much more affordable to make content, um, on the fact that you can self produce content and that you can just create, um, put it on your platform and then that content can then live on other, you know, you can sell it to a TV channel or you can make money through ads on your channel.

So I'd say that's extremely exciting. You know, podcasts are extremely exciting. They're also extremely, you know, um, cheap to make, uh, and you can create. a full kind of world around that. Um, 

so that's the unlock, right? The unlock is the fact that you can do your best work for real low cost now. And that, that can create all these opportunities.

Yeah. 

Ultimately, I mean, for me, what I'm focused on now is, is leverage in terms of creating the brand of Zanland so that you can go, I mean, I want to, in every single world, be able to say, you know, Zanland is a brand that people want to watch, whether that's a digital series on our own channel. or a Zanland on Netflix, you know, so you can have that ability to sell in different spaces or a podcast.

So for me, I'm just doing everything to make Zanland the place you want to go to watch unbelievable stories about crazy people. Roger 

that. Okay. And Gerrit, what do you think the big opportunity is for Quintus right now to scale up to the very next level? Well, 

there is still room, a lot room to grow the core business, which is more channels.

making the channels bigger, and then also doing more and more Quintus originals and selling it to TV, especially with the shortage of content coming up. I did hear 

for the first time at MIP, which I've been predicting for over a decade, and therefore shows why I lost all my hair, that, um, there's not much content now for people to buy.

So there's, there's this big opportunity at MIP that I'm told, you It's now there, which is this gulf because nobody's no TV commissioners are commissioning anything anymore. So there's a big opportunity of channels going, Oh my God, I've got fuck all to put on a Sunday night at nine o'clock. Please can somebody sell me something for 50 grand?

Yeah. So, so there, there is definitely an opportunity. I mean, on the other end, it might also be, uh, for us, a. You know, we also are dependent on getting content, so we cannot, we cannot, um, compensate 2000 hours that we need for our network per year, right? But anyway, so there is a big opportunity, but then also the next.

So what are documentaries for the for the millennial audience? audience. So that is also what we're looking to bid what a bit of what you guys are doing in several verticals. So we're thinking in vertical video verticals, uh, and, and what that means, because that would also open up more the brand money side, which we are only doing tiny bits of at the moment in long form, very journalistic kind of documentaries that is a bit tricky in the old linear world to combine these were these two bits, but in the more like Purely digital world that is a lot easier.

So, so 

that's Serena's model really of owning a space and being the number one in a niche and, and really therefore commanding the, um, the brands, they have to come to you and they have to spend money with you because you're the go to number one in that specific niche. Brilliant. 

Well, that's about it. for this week's show.

I hope you enjoyed it. For content industry videos featuring the moves and shakers of the international content industry, just click the link on the episode description or search TellyCast TV on YouTube. TellyCast was produced by Spirit Studios and recorded at the BFI South Bank. Until next week, stay safe.