I'm concerned about the future of the Documentary genre. I feel that a reasonable number of people enjoy watching long-form documentaries. However, people don't generally go to theaters to watch documentaries, so most are watched online either for free or as part of a streaming service like Netflix. I can't help but feel that it's currently a terrible financial decision to produce a long form documentary.
One recent trend I'm seeing is towards sponsored, 5-10min mini-documentaries on YouTube (Great Big Story by CNN is such a channel). These are popular and well-monetized. Is this the future of the documentary?
If you are a fan of long form documentaries, would you be willing to put your money where your mouth is? If so, what kind of business model would appeal to you? Personally, I sometimes connect so strongly with a documentary that I wouldn't mind paying to fund a follow-up. I would also pay to crowdfund a doc if I were really impressed by some sort of trailer.
Submitted November 19, 2017 at 08:19PM by mushm0m http://ift.tt/2yZryfq
