Yahoo Lifestyle Investigation Discovery Is Making A Killing In True-Crime
From the toxic behind-the-scenes world of children’s television to the dark world of Sean Combs, Investigation Discovery is having a moment.
The Warner Bros. Discovery cable network picked up its first Primetime Emmy nominations last year for Quiet on Set, which included accusations against former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider of fostering a hostile work environment, and Lost Women with narrator Octavia Spencer. Elsewhere, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace is wrapping up its “trilogy” and The Fall of Diddy is making noise as allegations against the rapper pile up.
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Jason Sarlanis, President of TNT, TBS, TruTV, ID & HLN, Linear and Streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery, talked up the network’s new “Docbuster” strategy, competing with big spending streamers and the ethics of true-crime, a genre that shows no sign of slowing down in a Deadline-moderated keynote session at the Realscreen event in Miami.
“It was very intentional to move this brand into being a content engine for premium documentaries. The entire trend in true-crime is going that way and the original home of true-crime had to compete in that space. We weren’t going to cede that space to the 17 other buyers who are doing big true-crime documentaries, but we had to do it our way, and especially since it had gotten so crowded. Our focus is on how we can be the definitive source for the most provocative and investigative content,” Sarlanis said.
This is not a fewer, bigger, better strategy, either. The former ABC executive told Deadline that he is planning to do even more this year. “That’s not to say we have an insatiable appetite to make these programs, because I think we want to make sure that they’re still special and they’re still events,” he added.
The network has a stable of producers that have worked with them in the past including Sony-backed Maxine Productions, Hot Snakes Media and October Films, but is now looking to find new filmmakers.
“The key is knowing that they’re an adult. Frankly, a lot of the stuff that we do is so complex from a moral standpoint, legal standpoint, we know that we’ve got to trust that filmmaker implicitly and also, at the end of the day, it’s truly about access. When we say new filmmakers, we’re not necessarily talking about people just moving into filmmaking,” he said.
Case in point: Michael Bay, who made his first true-crime series with Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior, and Oscar-winner Spencer.
“When Octavia came in and pitched us, she knew our prime-time slate better than I did. Literally, she’s on a WhatsApp group and texts about our programs at night. It’s encyclopedic, and so that’s why we were so drawn to her, because it didn’t feel like somebody who just wanted to produce, this was almost a dream of hers,” he said.
With regards to Bay, better known for blockbuster movies such as Bad Boys and Transformers, Sarlanis took the pitch at Bay’s compound in Bel-Air to screen his sizzle. “I’m sure we were one of Netflix, Hulu, everybody, I’m sure, was paraded over there. As the clip ended, my key lieutenant [SVP, Development] Winona [Meringolo] was telling Bay more about his case than he knew himself. He told me that’s why we won the project,” he added.
The competition in the space is getting intense. “What is great is because we have that knowledge of this genre, we do know what it costs. We are very aware of the nuts and bolts of what it actually takes to make these programs. We’re not going into any budget negotiation blind, that’s key to us. But we often know that it’s not about what it costs, it’s about what the market is willing to bear. So at least in those instances where we might have to step up to a license fee or a production budget that is inflated, one might say we can at least help get most of that money on the screen in the right way that matters,” he added.
Having Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav on board is key, said Sarlanis. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Do what it takes to get the programs you believe in’. Having that kind of support corporately, especially in such a disruptive world, that’s why we can win some of these things.
The Fall of Diddy and Quiet on Set both had additional episodes after their initial greenlight. Sarlanis said that he wants to continue working with Maxine boss Mary Robertson. “That relationship with Mary is really special. Frankly, whatever she comes to us and says, ‘This is a story I believe in’, whether that is an evolution of Quiet on Set, tangential to it, or in a completely different area, we’ll be first in line to figure out how to do it,” he added.
It is also expanding The Curious Case of Natalia Grace into The Curious Case franchise.
ID is well aware of the ethics of making true-crime documentaries. Schneider is pursuing a defamation suit against the company, while Chris Brown, subject of Chris Brown: A History of Violence, which premiered last year, is also taking legal action. There’s also the important topic of making sure that its contributors, many of whom have suffered horrible losses, are treated well.
“We are very victim centric in how we tell our stories. There’s been times, frankly, where we’ve made an entire episode of a show and we get a call from the producer, saying the victims’ families have changed their mind, and we are asking if you would be open to not airing the show and we’ve said ‘Yes’, because that was the right thing to do. That’s our north star,” he added.
Sarlanis knows the difficulty of working in this side of the industry. The former Keeping Up with the Kardashians exec also oversees TNT, TBS and TruTV, which provide slightly lighter programming. “There’s no shortage of challenges for me in the day, shifting from one meeting into the next, from one mindset into the next. It’s actually one of the things I love about my job. To be honest with you, if I didn’t have [both], I don’t know if I’d still be working,” he added.
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