Broadcaster ‘snobbery’ towards crowdfunding hastening move to YouTube, Doc/Fest hears

DOC/FEST: ‘Snobbery’ from traditional broadcasters towards crowdfunded doc projects risks exacerbating their loss of audiences and advertisers to YouTube, Doc/Fest delegates were told on Thursday.

Paul Sng

Paul Sng, the British-Chinese director of docs including Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain and Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché, told delegates here in Sheffield those projects would only have been possible through crowdfunding but traditional broadcasters were still prone to turning their nose up at projects financed that way.

“It’s much more risk averse in terms of what commissioners want, I don’t know if any of them are keen on this model but the snobbery in the industry from commissioners around crowdfunding is inexplicable now”, he said.

“We’re in a period where they don’t have funds or the willingness to take risks. They want programmes about famous people, true crime, and the weird wacky wonderful. They get to be less picky and dictatorial.

“Every so often things come along that shake up systems, technological developments or cultural movements like punk and rave. Crowdfunding in terms of funding is the punk of the funding world. They need to accept it or move out of the way.

“Without slagging off public broadcasters, their time is up. YouTube is bigger than all of them put together. This is a way of reaching an audience directly. Their budgets are shrinking, they’re not commissioning much, there’s a way to get directly to people. If they can’t get on board with your finance plan and your funding model they’ll be left behind.”