On a voyage of Discovery

He started, so they say, from his garage. He mortgaged his house and then bought documentaries for $1000 /each. A ridiculously low figure 20 years ago – now so common. He felt that Americans wanted to know more about the roots – that, unlike their parents, the new generation was interested in the ‘old countries’. His name was John Hendricks and he started the Discovery Channel. Today, many years later, in a wet, miserable Silver Spring towards the end of the Washington DC Metro line, I stood at the doors of a huge office block holding the many Discovery Channel families. John I expect was enjoying his multi-million dollar wealth somewhere. I’ve made many films for them but that was back in the day when they wanted decent history shows rather than reality shows about deep sea fishermen, gold pan-handlers or whatever. TV has changed almost beyond recognition in two decades and Discovery has been a part of that – part the cause and part the effect. Like so many big institutions it has always come down to individuals. My friend there is one of the good guys – smart, hard-working, passionately interested in the world. Yet even he (a high up exec) feels the jelly under his feet of job insecurity. VPs and CEOs come and go – familiar names swop between Discovery, A&E, BBC and others. The impact, the value, of programmes become secondary to audience numbers. The audience wants blood, give them blood. Julius Caesar had this worked out two thousand years ago when he flooded arenas for sea battles, brought in wild animals from Africa to fight gladiators and so on. But you know what? No kid wants to go the theatre but take them to see Romeo and Juliet and they’ll want to go back. Take them to see Marriage of Figaro and they’ll want to see The Magic Flute. So, I say to my buddy at Discovery, hang in there, they need you!