New York Times/CIDM: Documentary Channel Aims at an Underserved Audience

May 4, 2014

New York Times/CIDM: Documentary Channel Aims at an Underserved Audience By MICHAEL CIEPLY

The New York Times

MAY 4, 2014

LOS ANGELES - A sobering thought for documentarians: In 2013, Iron Man 3 sold about as many theater tickets in one day as all of their documentaries did all year. Combined.

A brighter prospect: On roughly 165 million game consoles, set-top boxes, and digitally connected televisions, documentary makers will soon have a channel of their own.

Cinedigm, a digital entertainment distributor, expects on May 20 to introduce the Docurama Digital Channel, a free, advertising-supported service that by July will offer on-demand access to more than a thousand documentaries. The films, both new and old, will be as prominent as Gasland, Josh Foxs 2010 expos of the hazards (like flammable tap water) associated with natural gas drilling, or Joe Berlingers Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, the classic investigation, from 2000, of a legal process gone haywire in an Arkansas murder case.

We really think it is a business, Chris McGurk, Cinedigms chief executive, said of the new service, which aims to double its first-year offerings within 12 months, while adding original programming and festival coverage.

Theres an audience thats being underserved, added Mr. McGurk, who in past executive posts has been involved with documentaries like Michael Moores Bowling for Columbine and Capitalism: A Love Story.

Cinedigm is not alone in aiming to capitalize on the hundreds of documentary films that are chronically overlooked by theatergoers, and by studios that have largely bowed out of the documentary business. Other digital services, including SnagFilms and Pivot, offer documentaries.

But Docurama, a 15-year-old documentary distributor that Cinedigm acquired two years ago, brings both a library and a familiar brand to the game.

Last year, Cinedigm and Docurama experimented with a YouTube channel that offered several hundred pay-per-view documentaries. That approach will now be phased out.

For revenue, the channel will rely on advertising embedded within the films, at intervals that will be well under half the ad frequency on free cable channels, said Susan Margolin, Docuramas president.

Creatively, the documentary is reaching new heights, Ms. Margolin added.

Now the challenge is to find a next generation of viewers on their Roku and Xbox sets. It is a golden age, she said.

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