It’s a month since leading luminaries from the digital-first content business gathered at the BFI for the third edition of the TellyCast Digital Content Forum. At the end of a packed day of panels and networking breaks, one of the key pieces of feedback was the value of the event as a showcase for new and innovative ideas.
This was evident in a number of ways. The panels, for example, provided a steady stream of updates on shows in development – while buyer’s lounge The Bridge provided a unique opportunity for buyers and sellers to engage in creative dialogue. The networking breaks, meanwhile, saw dozens of new partnerships formed.
Not to be forgotten either was the third edition of The Drop Live!, which this year was integrated into the main body of the Forum (as opposed to being an evening event).
For those not familiar with The Drop Live!, it is the content industry’s only showcase of projects in development from digital-first producers, with previous years’ sessions at the Forum having directly resulted to three commissioned projects.
At the 2024 event, four companies showed off their wares:
Strong Watch Studios was up first, showing off a range of factual formats developed by repurposing content previously filmed for its People Are Deep channel.
Knock, Knock: Inside the Door-to-Door Cult is an investigation into Jehovah’s Witnesses, based on a mixture of survivors’ interviews, archive footage and animation. Meanwhile, The People’s Parole Board: Can You Fix Britain’s Broken Prisons? casts a parole board from members of the public, showing them interview footage with criminals and asking them to decide what the sentencing should be.
Five Perspectives, meanwhile, is a feature-length documentary strand that contrasts interviews with five different people who have expert perspectives on a topic. For an episode on the war in Afghanistan, for example, the five are an Al-Qaeda operative-turned-spy; a Royal Marine who fought in Afghanistan; a member of the US Special Forces; an Afghani activist; and politician-turned-podcaster Rory Stewart. Other episodes will focus on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Iraq War, the 7/7 bombings, the January 6 Capitol riot, and the Hillsborough tragedy.
Finally, Who’s Killing London’s Cats? made use of b-roll footage to tell the story of the ‘Croydon Cat Killer’ and the moral panic around the deaths of more than 400 cats and other animals in the UK. The project includes the perspective of Boudicca Rising, who has helped to catch a number of animal-abusers.
Seen.tv was next to pitch. The company has trained 20,000 mobile journalists in 140 countries to film high-quality stories on their phones, with the content having already generated more than 3bn minutes of watch-time and attracted 8m subscribers online.
One of its key regions right now is Gaza, where it is working with 50 creators on the ground to film short-form content, which it is packaging up into longer-form documentaries – one a month at the moment, with the ambition of upping that to one a week. Ahmad Alive is an example: a first-person account that “feels like a FaceTime call: a candid way of telling a story” from a travel vlogger-turned-war-journalist in Gaza.
Seen.tv also pitched Muslimish, a new show that asks the question: can you be both a Muslim and a liberal? Starring the company’s own co-founder Yusuf Omar and a group of fellow liberal Muslims, it follows them on a road trip across the US questioning how their personal beliefs fit in to the doctrines of more traditional Muslim leaders.
Zandland (pictured) was third to pitch, outlining its focus on “finding middle grounds, understanding why people think the way they do without judgement… in a world where people seem to increasingly hate each other”. It has already made waves with The Great Amazon Heist, following activist and filmmaker Oobah Butler undercover at one of Amazon’s fulfilment centres in the UK, while also pulling the (serious-pointed) prank of launching a drink made from the urine of Amazon drivers.
The company’s Drop Live! pitch was for Trapped: With the Enemy. It’s a format that locks two people with diametrically-opposed views in a room for an hour, with no hosts, mediators or pre-scripted questions. They have to see if they can find common ground. The participants spend the first five minutes making silent eye contact, before negotiating the basic ground rules for their conversation. Then, halfway through, they must each spend five minutes arguing from the other’s point of view.
Towards the end, there is a pause for silent reflection, then a final 10 minutes where they have to find something they respect or admire about the other. Examples of pairings for this are an incel and a woman; an Israeli and a Palestinian; a Democrat and a Republican; a drag queen and a conservative; an anti-vaxxer and a health expert; and an immigrant and someone who is anti-immigration.
Fawkes Digital is behind Channel 4.0’s Baddest in the World, where three western women dated eligible bachelors in South Korea to expand their dating pool and enjoy new experiences. The company’s Drop Live! pitch was for a format called CEOs Go Wild, which has been developed with an unusual platform in mind: LinkedIn.
The show will see women business leaders and entrepreneurs taken into the Great British wilderness by presenter and survivalist Tinuke Oyediran for deep conversations about their lived experiences, with topics including risk-taking, work/life balance and glass cliffs to motherhood, hormones and imposter syndrome.
A week after having the idea, Fawkes founder Lucy Smith took on the role of interviewee filming with Oyediran – “we shot a pilot on two iPhones in the Scottish Highlands for £250!” – to prove the concept. That pilot generated nearly 27,000 organic views when she posted it on her LinkedIn profile, with another 25,000 coming when Fawkes paid for a sponsored post. The plan is for the show to become a ‘LinkedIn-first’ brand with its own page on the platform. The UK will be the initial focus, but India, Australia and Japan are all on the roadmap too, once funding is secured.
Don’t forget, you still have a week left to enter the The TellyCast Digital Video Awards. This ground-breaking new awards programme has been launched to recognise excellence, creativity, and innovation in digital-first video production and distribution. Organised by the publishers of TellyCast and The Drop, the awards aim to honour the pioneering creators, brands, agencies, publishers, and producers redefining digital storytelling and transforming the entertainment landscape.
