I recently attended the annual Realscreen Summit in New Orleans. Realscreen is the premiere industry conference for the non-fiction television industry. The event brings together Network Executives and Producers from around the world for four days of panels, pitching and networking. Each year during the conference, Executives from the top non-fiction networks—including History Channel, National Geographic, Travel Channel and Smithsonian, share details about the type of content they are looking for. Producers then have the chance to pitch new show concepts. It’s an exciting opportunity for Producers of all levels—from first-timers to journeymen—to gain rich insights and pitch their best ideas to key decision-makers.

This was Impact’s third year to attend Realscreen. Each year provides the opportunity to learn more about an industry where we hope to expand and allows us to pitch our own unique ideas and in turn, receive valuable feedback from some of the top contacts in the industry. In anticipation of this year’s conference, our team developed several exciting show concepts covering a diverse range of topics including history, travel and cars. We were excited to have the opportunity to pitch our favorites directly to History Channel and MotorTrend.

Key Takeaways from the Summit

  • Even though people are consuming more video content than ever, the way they consume it is being spread across many more outlets.
  • Just as the big three networks had to learn and adapt when cable came into existence with all of its options, now the “traditional” cable networks are having to adapt to the new Over the Top (OTT) services.
  • US TV viewers quitting cable in favor of various Video on Demand (VOD) (both subscription and advertising supported) outlets increased by a dramatic 32.8% in 2018 (from 9.8% to 12.9% of the population – Source: eMarketer, July 2018).
  • New players like YouTube TV and Disney+ are entering the VOD arena.
  • VOD services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are committing large budgets to acquiring content while Cable networks are forced to be more selective, making their budgets work harder.
  • Producers bringing new programming ideas to market are working in a more competitive arena than ever.

Impact is best known for our innovative meeting and event production, video production, exhibits and interactive multimedia, all of which require the ability to captivate an audience through powerful messaging and storytelling. It is because of these abilities that documentaries are a natural fit for Impact’s creativity and experience. In fact, several members of our team have substantial experience in this field and know just what it takes to succeed. Emmy-award winning Producer/Writer Sarah Pagura has produced over 25 hours of non-fiction content for major networks including CNBC, Biography, History Channel, Weather Channel and National Geographic Channel. Associate Producer Melissa Bentley worked on A&E’s incredibly successful series First 48, and our Director of Photography Craig Toussant got his start in production at VH-1 and MTV.

Realscreen 2019 was a great opportunity to visit New Orleans, make some new friends and contacts, and take a great deal of knowledge away about the non-fiction television industry. We look forward to hopefully sharing some news about exciting projects in the future!

documentaries Event Production Impact Communications Meeting Production Multimedia Production Non-fiction television Video Production