07/30/2025
Letter to myself, the unscriped tv industry and the wonderful freelancers who make it all possible.
I have been thinking a lot, as I am sure all of you have, about where things are going in our industry. After a brief euphoria following the dark days of the pandemic, it is clear that unscripted television and lifestyle programming in particular is in a death spiral. While there will be a few unscripted shows that survive on streaming platforms, it is my belief that it will only consist of a few programs that can compete with massive hits like Game of Thrones or Stranger Things. The fact is that there is very limited real estate when it comes to show tiles on streaming platforms.
Most unscripted programming is, by its nature, niche programming. Digital video and digital editing in the '90s brought costs down and allowed programming that excited a small but dedicated audience to thrive. I believe that we are in the midst of a similar technological revolution that is forcing change once again. Never has it been easier to shoot high-quality footage with nothing more than an iPhone then stitch it together with new editing software. If you look at the ratings for cable TV, you can see that it is a straight line down, hitting zero in about ten years. I believe that the end will be even sooner.
So, what is the future? In the same way that reality TV in the '90s allowed audiences to feel closer to the stories, social media and YouTube are doing the same thing. Audiences do not want to feel the heavy hands of a network channel or a production company. They want to feel like they have a direct line to the person they are interested in and want to follow. Each generation demands its own form of storytelling.
So, what does that mean for us "dinosaurs," the freelancers and production companies that have spent so many years honing our skills? No doubt this is a very painful period, but I do think there is hope. It is my belief that we are in the early stages of a great explosion of unscripted storytelling in the world of social media and YouTube. Not that social media or YouTube are new, but I think audiences are becoming more sophisticated and demanding better content. When there is an endless sea of content available, quality matters. While freelance rates are certainly much lower, I believe they will come up. I also think there will be new forms of compensation, where the people who make the content actually have a monetary stake in the success of the content they create.
What is Departure Films doing? We are using these final years of producing cable TV programs to help fund a leap into the YouTube and social media world, but we are sticking to what we know and do best: lifestyle programming. We approach this endeavor with a great deal of humility. We have to accept that many things have changed and, above all, we have to respect our audiences. I am not sure if you can teach an old dog new tricks, but we are certainly going to try. We are going to try and embrace the freedom and creativity that reminds me so much of what it was like when reality TV started: that willingness to try anything and even the willingness to fail. I must admit the programming we do has become more and more calcified as we have to make programs that fit within a smaller and smaller box.
I care deeply about this creative community and it pains me deeply to see so many struggle. I hope this is just the start of a conversation, and that everyone will successfully navigate this difficult period that also offers opportunity at the same time.
All the best,
Max
