K7 Media, the British consultancy specializing in television content, presented at VS Next a new report about the global factual trends, highlighting that the platforms are looking for local themes and formats with safe production schemes.
The session led by Ella Turner, Client Manager, and John Brown, Researcher, described that the factual programming in 2021 was led by content with a local focus and travel themes, encouraging people to discover localities. They mentioned Eén (Belgium) and NPO2 (The Netherland) Dwars door by Lage Landen; Craig and Bruno‘s Great British Road Trips from ITV (UK); Lustlik Setomaa from Kanal 2 (Estonia); or Wine Trips Romania from Pro TV Plus and VOYO (Romania).
The firm specified that due to the conditions for recording content, it has promoted new formats and factual content, dispensing with filming in the open air and returning to libraries and documentation. An example of this is the BBC2 (UK) show In The Pictures, which reviews in each chapter the story behind the most famous photographs in contemporary history, including Freddie Mercury, Tupac Shakur, Elizabeth Taylor and Amy Winehouse; also Secret Treasures of the museum by DR (Denmark), which follows in depth the most interesting details of the Museum of Denmark.
Another trend is to review the impact of the covid in certain sectors of entertainment such as sports and music, highlighting Dark Side of Football by Vice TV (USA), Football’s darkest secret by BBC1 (UK) and Steelers: The world’s gay first rugby club.
