General Entertainment is big in Asia. While we love the blue chip documentary; we want a part of factual to go hand in hand with entertainment as well. ATF brings together leading broadcasters, distributors and programmers to share their views about the current trend and what the audience is looking for. Content with higher production value is expected, so they discuss on coping with producing content that is bold with flavours catering to the audiences’ ever-changing appetite.
Leading this distinguished panel comprising BBC Worldwide India SVP & GM India and content head Asia Myleeta Aga; Discovery Networks Asia Pacific, Singapore VP, production & development Vikram Channa; All3Media International, UK VP, international format sales Sabrina Duguet; A+E Networks Asia, Singapore director, production Chris Humphrey; ITVS GE & rest of world production, UK MD Maria Kyriacou, was led by Beach House Pictures, Singapore senior development producer Marc Checkley.
The discussion began with a question being put to the panel on how each one would define ‘Factual Entertainment’. To this, Chris quipped: “To put it plainly, everything that’s non-fiction can be termed as ‘factual’ content.” Everyone smiled and nodded in agreement.
Vikram added: “Earlier there was no such term as factual entertainment; it was either fictional content or documentaries. Even when I joined in my early days, we all used to work on ‘real life stories’, now factual is a wider term.”
The discussion then moved deeper in terms of the casting for such shows. Everyone was of the opinion that the casting of the roles must be done keeping in mind how real the character is to his/her real self. “The idea is to cast someone who ‘reacts’ to situations, rather than ‘act’. The protagonist also needs to have oodles of patience as there could be times when the scene may not be rightly enacted and needs to be recaptured as per the director’s wishes,” Myleeta expounded.
They further discussed a few of their shows in greater detail and how the concept of factual entertainment is slowly catching on in Asia, and is a genre which is here to stay.