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Rock docs on a roll, pt 1
WHAT'S UP DOC?: In the first instalment of a two-part feature about the growth of music documentaries, Adam Benzine reports on how the boom in the genre is shaking up the volatile world of music programming. It has been a decade of change and challenge for the music industry. Since the advent of Napster in 1999 and the birth of online music, major record labels have found themselves thrown into an unfamiliar and unfriendly world, forced to adapt to an environment where access trumps ownership.  As these titans of old have struggled to re-adjust, a similar tale has been unfolding in the TV industry. The major networks, long the content gatekeepers, have lost share and reach to a raft of digital newcomers and an audience increasingly comfortable with a multitude of screens. Recent years have seen the likes of MTV and VH1 - which made their names as the homes of music programming from the late 1980s to mid '90s - moving away from music videos and performance programming into music-related reality and reality documentaries. But now, ironically, networks better known for factual programming are increasingly turning their gaze towards music shows - and music documentaries in particular. Broadcasters such as the UK's factually skewing digital network BBC4 have been looking to high-end music documentaries to win audiences, while US cable network National Geographic has even gone as far as to launch a dedicated music channel, Nat Geo Music. "Specialist music documentaries are one of the big success stories of BBC4," says Adam Kemp, the BBC's commissioning editor for arts, music and religion. "They tend to be intelligent, with political and social insight, and are constantly among the best-performing documentaries for the channel. "In its early years, the amount of music documentary the channel had was lower, and we've been building up from single docs to series, such has been the appetite. What some commentators haven't appreciated is that having four networks allows for a very wide variety of programming types in different genres. With BBC4 we are able to deliver to aficionados specific sub-genres of music in ways we never could before." Among the key factual series BBC4 has broadcast over the past year, Kemp cites the cross-genre series Britannia; eight-part classical music season Sacred Music; and the ambitious, exploratory American Folk as successful examples.  The change in mood has not gone unnoticed by the distributors of such titles. "The actual buying of music documentaries has increased, and over the last two years it has actually overtaken live concerts in its popularity and its interest," says Will White, international television sales manager for music distributor Eagle Vision. Eagle Vision's key title has been Classic Albums (31x60'), a collection of one-offs that go behind the scenes to explain the making of albums such as Nirvana's Nevermind, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and U2's Joshua Tree, using archive footage and new interviews. "They're big-budget and they're all completely authorised. What's slightly different from most docs is there are no narrators - they're telling the stories in their own words. It works both in the UK and the US in English, and abroad with subtitling." White adds that Eagle has been having success with the series in territories such as Asia, where Hong Kong's ATV has picked it up, as well as Scandinavia, where it has been taken by the likes of YLE in Finland and NRK in Norway. Other channels enjoying success with music docs include AETN-owned US cablenet Bio, which rebranded from the Biography Channel in February 2008. Though the channel has biographies covering politicians, athletes and movie stars, it is musicians who often bring the highest ratings. "Musicians tend to have very dramatic lives, which often makes for biogs that are real rollercoaster rides," explains Robert Sharenow (above), senior VP of non-fiction and alternative programming for A&E and Bio.  "We just did a two-hour special on Johnny Cash called Johnny Cash's America (left), which has been one of the highest-rating biographies we've had this year. It typifies what makes a great bio perfectly - a singular artist with a very distinct style and a very soap-operatic life: love affairs, addiction, prison, the kinds of things you couldn't even script. It did at least 30% or 40% better ratings than artists might normally do. "Music programming is very genrefied; fans of a specific genre will turn away from other genres. But I think fans of biogs will push through that. Fans of stories will watch a Whitney Houston biography, an Eminem biography and a Johnny Cash biography just because they're fans of pure storytelling and epic lives." Forthcoming biogs of artists will include Jennifer Hudson, Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, Aerosmith and Kurt Cobain. Bio also has The Chris Isaak Hour, a show that blends performance elements with storytelling, fronted by the titular crooner. "One of the things that maybe distinguishes that format is it really is very much a way of telling musical biographies," says Sharenow. "The songs that are performed aren't just random or the latest on the album, there's always a story behind the song and it's woven into what the interview's addressing. "Having that access really helps make it more accessible to a general audience. If you're hearing Stevie Nicks discuss the first song her father sang to her, then even if you're not a fan, you're going to get drawn in." Visit C21Media.net tomorrow for part two of this feature. Adam Benzine 16 Apr 2009 © C21 Media 2009 
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