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3 Reflections on Making a BBC Documentary
Spoiler: It's the radio
So You Want to Make a Documentary
Now that Returning Germany’s Stolen Skulls (which has erroneously kept its original name “The Kidnapped Dead” on the BBC website) is properly scheduled for broadcast tomorrow on the World Service, we wanted to share a couple of insights - reflections that are hopefully helpful for both listeners and producers:
The pay isn’t as bad as you’d think, but it’s not enough to make a career - unless you’re willing to fight for it.
The major contributors on our show pulled in less than a month’s salary for ca. 5 months’ work. Now it wasn’t full-time work for all 6 months, but it was many hours of work. The only way to make that financially viable is to spend less time working on shows - and deliver lower-quality work - or make many more documentaries every year. That’s tough. Not impossible, but tough.
Fact checking is still a thing. And that’s good.
For all the criticism the BBC faces and all the noise surrounding the license fee that keeps it running, we were impressed and happy with the fact checking and journalistic protocol that was part of delivering the documentary (their editorial guidelines are public). It’s boomerish and idealistic to think every show on the BBC represents some centrally-held, complete truth. But quality can be judged in many ways - and knowing that producers and journalists did their best to cover all sides of a story undoubtedly helps the listening experience. Don’t you think?
The radio: Cachet or Crap?
We make all the audio: Podcasts, audiobooks, radio shows, guides, courses, you name it. But for years, much of the buzz has been about how podcasting has caught up with radio, and has even surpassed it among certain demographics in some places (e.g. in Germany: “For the first time, more 18- to 29-year-olds listen to podcasts than radio”). Podcasts’ advantages over radio are clear: more choice, more control, better mobile apps, etc. But being on the Beeb and played live around the world on the World Service is still unique because it is a very direct form of distribution. The World Service alone reaches 58 million people. And yes, even though it’s old-school, there’s something cool and artful about delivering audio timed to an exact second because it’s broadcast as part of a tightly programmed audio hour.
See you tomorrow!
Listening Event is Tomorrow!
See you @ 18.30h at Chapters. RSVP here (free).
We’re really looking forward to the listening event tomorrow. We’ve had to extend capacity twice to make sure there were enough tickets available on Eventbrite - we’re so happy so many of you can make it!
We’ve been cleaning up and preparing the space to get ready. It’s amazing that we’ll get to be in Chapters before there are books in there, really at the very beginning of a special journey.
Here’s the agenda:
What we do
We started this newsletter about a month ago. Here are some of the previous editions:
Introducing Kollo Media: “Let’s Really Look at the Thing”
Announcing our first audiobook and thoughts on the audiobook market
Considering Dan Hicks’s writing and drinking out of a skull
Thanks for following along so far. We appreciate your support.