At a presentation at this year’s Mip London, Ampere Analysis’ executive director Guy Bisson drilled down on the current state of factual television, looking into the booming effect of sports commissioning, the impact of YouTube as a destination for factual content and shifting differences between streamers and broadcasters.
Bisson gave Variety a comprehensive look into his research, compiled into a presentation titled “10 Factual Facts to Flourish in the Future.” The exec mentioned his previously coined 75% Peak TV as a point of reference, which refers to the 25% decrease in scripted commissioning since the peak of TV, around 2022. Conversely, factual commissioning is down only 15%, with Bisson calling it “one of the areas of opportunity.” Below is a breakdown of the main takeaways from Bisson’s analysis on the current moment for factual commissioning:
Good news for once
As mentioned above, documentary commissioning is only down 15%, compared to the 25% decrease in scripted commissioning. Some subgenres within documentary, like biography and military and war, have “hardly dropped,” added Bisson.
The exec also highlighted how Western Europe is a “bit of a hotbed for documentary.” “If we look at the first six months of 2025, you can see that Europe has been stable while other regions have declined a bit. The majority of commissioning is going to Western Europe, and that is across four key genres: cultural, crime, biographical and historical.”
“Western Europe and North America are going into recovery after a minor dip in the first half of 2025,” he noted. “A year earlier, we were in a bit of a mini-peak for documentary commissioning in North America and Western Europe. We’re now going back to levels we saw in 2024. Again, a positive story.”
The sports effect
One of the reasons for the steady numbers in factual is the rise of sports content commissioning. “As streamers move into live sports, they are commissioning content that is sports-related, like Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive,’” said Bisson. “Within the areas that have benefited from that upswing in sports commissioning, documentary is the one that has benefited most.”
Other major events, such as the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, help drive this demand. Original sports streaming series orders by the Global 6 streamers increased exponentially in 2024 before a small dip in 2025, which would signal a peak in commissioning tied to both major sports events taking place in 2026.
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YouTube impact
While factual subgenres like crime are still majorly important commissioning drivers, with Bisson emphasizing it remains “the most important genre” and “has not declined since peak,” the truth is that streamers are pulling back “pretty much across the board” when it comes to greenlighting factual content. “Even crime has dropped a bit but, crucially, it remains 40% of their commissioning activity. That drop is very small.”
“One reason that might be, and this is circumstantial evidence rather than numerical, is YouTube,” the exec pointed out. “I made a similar point around children’s content recently, where commercial players are pulling back from it, and even more so with documentary. Is it because children go to YouTube now? If adults are now going to YouTube for documentaries, is that one of the drivers for that pullback we are seeing from the commercially-driven players?”
Bisson noted how we are also seeing broadcasters “increasingly putting full-length content on YouTube.” “We are also seeing shorter windows between the two,” he said. “Basically 70% of documentary content is now dropping on a broadcaster’s YouTube channel within 30 days or less of its on-air premiere.”
Public broadcasters are more important than ever
“The commercially-driven operator — that would include streamers, commercial broadcasters and traditional legacy pay TV players — is generally pulling back from documentary. Which means that public broadcasters, the most important commissioners anyway in documentary, have become ever more important. Public broadcasters are generally very news-driven, so when it comes to war-related content, culture, and what would fall into medical and health like mental health issues and the impact of social media on children’s mental health, these are all topics that are growing and that public broadcasters can move very quickly on, while streamers are a little less able to address. Broadcasters also have a lot of content they can adapt and repurpose very quickly to keep it topical.”
“When we look at where streamers are pulling back, it is pretty much across the board. Even crime has dropped a bit but, crucially, it remains 40% of their commissioning activity. That drop is very small.”
What do commissioners want?
Based on the data gathered, Bisson neatly wrapped up commissioning trends for streamers and broadcasters. The exec emphasized there is “overlap,” but approached from different angles. “While broadcasters are also interested in crime, they’re after a social angle and often want to tie it to a historical perspective,” he offered as an example. “If you can work in some collective trauma, that helps, as well as connecting historical legacy to contemporary social challenge.”
Looking at commissions by streamers, Bisson singled out content that offers “a new or untold angle, focus on personal cost and sacrifice, leverage infamy, expose institutional secrets and look for gendered or archetypal protagonists.” “If you can bring in the personal cost of sacrifice in sports performance or music, that’s going to help,” he noted.
Source: variety.com
