Discovery founder launches SVoD service

John Hendricks, founder of the Discovery Channel and former chairman of Discovery Communications, is launching a factual-based SVoD service.

CuriosityStream will launch on March 18 focusing on premium factual content, with original commissions forming part of its offering from the beginning.

The new platform has already greenlit production of 4k series and short-form programming including Big Picture Earth from filmmaker David Conover (Sunrise Earth). The 20-part series will capture the wonders of the world for subscribers with 4k television sets.

Other commissions include multi-episode Deep Time History and Digits, with the latter providing a comprehensive history of computers and the internet.

Ready-made programming is also being acquired from global factual distributors, including ZED in France, Flame Distribution, Terra Noa, Japanese public broadcaster NHK and BBC Worldwide.

The bulk of the monthly offering will consist of short-form content of eight minutes or shorter, as well as 20 interviews per month with leading experts in their fields from in-house production arm Curiosity Studios.

Hendricks said: “As many in the industry know, I have long dreamed of a content-on-demand service that uses advanced media to empower the enduring human desire to understand the universe and the world around us.

“The advent of online streaming technology utilised by Netflix and other successful video streaming services has created a video transmission infrastructure that finally allows viewers to watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch it. This same on-demand, ad-free transmission framework can deliver premium factual content as well as premium entertainment content.”

The service will be priced depending on definition, with a monthly SD fee of US$2.99 all the way up to US$9.99 a month for ultra-high-definition 4k streams.

Hendricks’ daughter Elizabeth Hendricks North is president of the venture, while her husband Peter North is executive VP for digital media.