To talk about the commission business and production alliances in both factual and sports content, Jack Oliver, Head of Co-Production at Sky UK, was the guest of a session during the first hour of MIPTV 2024 yesterday, where he commented that the group, specialized in high-end content, brings together more than 23 million subscribers in different markets, with a portfolio of more than 10 dedicated channels throughout the region.
‘We want to support the whole family, so the offer is very inclusive and represents the interests of the family. We have a multitude of 14 to 15 channels destined within the portfolio of match channels and streaming applications and so on’, said Oliver, who also mentioned the linear and streaming vertical launched last year by Sky Kids, which was born to meet the demand for content. childish.
But regarding the conference that he starred at Pre-MIPTV program MIPDocs, the executive spoke about Sky Documentaries, the operator’s factual proposal, launched in 2020, and which has become a fundamental part of his television proposal in Europe. ‘We could see the young audience’s growing appetite for documentary content, but particularly for the stories of current personalities’.
In this content vertical, partnerships are important for Sky Group, which has strong partners such as HBO, who provides documentary content with the quality that distinguishes them. ‘We have a long relationship with HBO, so we have positioned many of their documentaries very well on Sky Atlantics, but we understood that they were not the place for them, and that was the reason we launched a channel dedicated to documentaries’, he explained.
The narrative pillars of Sky documentaries are ‘communication, provocation and entertainment’, so the content of this genre can cover any focus, but these aspects must predominate.
As for the searches that the executive undertakes in MIPDocs this year, they are artists, sports, icons and crime scandals. ‘These are topics that interest us, since they have a lot of reach with our audience, since although many of these personalities are well-known, we are characterized by going deeper and offering information that is not common,’ he remarked.
Also, Oliver referred to the acclaimed documentary Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell, which follows in the footsteps of the controversial character. This project had several partnerships behind it, Blue Ant Studios, Abacus and NBCUniversal, with a team of women in charge of production and development.
Finally, the co-production director referred to the budgets for documentaries, explaining that they objectively study the focus of the project and allocate specific resources or explore forms of financing, whether co-production, co-financing and even requesting funds for production in countries with incentive policies.
