On June 25 Sunny Side of the Doc hosted a “Meet the Executives” session during which National Geographic (NatGeo) reps took centre stage to share insights into the factual needs of the Channel, commissioning opportunities and to explain who commissions what. The session also sought to “deep dive” into some of the series that work best for the channel as well as provide sneak peaks at new content in production.
The talk was moderated by Big Wave Productions Managing Director Kirstie McLure and saw the participation of Europe and UK execs Sarah Peat (Commissioning Executive Producer), Ben Noot (Director of Global Acquisitions) and Alexander Lawson (Development & Production Producer).
After a quick round of introductions, the floor was given to Peat, who introduced NatGeo’s three main ‘pathways’: National Geographic International, Regional and Global Acquisitions. “Those are all distinct funding pots, they’re all linear and they all co-produce but they’re very busy and dynamic pathways you should know about,” she said before launching a sizzle featuring some of the pathway’s latest productions.
“You didn’t see Limitless or clips from the One Day franchise, Gordon Ramsay or Will Smith,” Peat explained. “That’s because all of that content comes out of the US office and the Global Originals team.”
The mic was then handed to Noot who further explained Global Originals output: “The Originals team is led by Tom McDonald and they’re outlining a ‘bigger, better, fewer’ strategy [including a focus on] A-list talents like Stanley Tucci and Chris Hemsworth. They also have a focus on D2C, so shows going directly going to Disney+, whereas we’re focused on our linear businesses around the world.”
Peat clarified that when NatGeo speaks of ‘Global’ this includes the entire world, whereas ‘International’ stands for “the whole world excluding the US.”
“We’re looking for programmes that have that broad international appeal, things that resonate in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa… That’s kind of a tricky order, to find stories and content that makes all audiences happy. But if you can do that, the reward is pretty big.” In this respect, she cited the example of Air Crash Investigation, now in its 24th season.
“We’re always linear first. […] We’re open to co-production. We’ve ideas pitched into us that come with lots of money attached [or] no money attached. We’re funding agnostic, and we’re open to have conversations on how we get the budgets to where they need to be,” Peat added. “Our shows need to work pan-regionally, and they need to be returnable, repeatable and scalable. By scalable we mean the ability of turning them into franchises and following different stories and different content under that title. A good example is the Lost Treasure franchise, an archaeology series that has the scope to travel globally [depicting] incredible moments of discovery, and we’ve got some science involved in that.”
Lawson zoomed in on NatGeo’s “unique relationship” with talents, adding how the team “constantly tries to find new, authentic voices to bring to the channel.” He also highlighted the importance of picking “well-versed people, connected with the subject matters they’re talking about” and being as inclusive as possible. These experts don’t necessarily need to possess an academic background, such in the case of Daniel Ashville of Building Impossible.
Peat also mentioned how the studio working behind WW2: Secrets from Above responded effectively to NatGeo’s call for inclusion by presenting “a roster of talents from different backgrounds,” who aren’t “the usual faces one would expect to see” in this type of show.
She also stressed how the Regional pathways back the making of local content, touching on the shows Car S.O.S. and Defending Europe, produced by Atomic Television and focusing on Europe’s ancient military history. “Viewers love to come to something that is relevant to themselves, and we get fantastic peaks in viewerships in single territories,” the exec underscored.
Speaking of the NatGeo projects in development, Lawson clarified the team is prioritising series. They look for shows that can be “run in schedule again and again,” for which one can “instantly envision season 3, 4, 5.” The focus is on programmes depicting great challenges, extraordinary people and captivating historical facts. Some of the examples he provided included disaster shows like Witness to Disaster; ancient world programmes like the aforementioned Lost Treasures, Rise & Fall of the Maya and Ancient China from Above; shows focusing on engineering such as Megastrutures; as well as series giving audience unprecedented access to highly risky contexts like Inside Sydney Airport and WW2 series like Hell Under the Sea and Nazi at Nuremberg: The Lost Testimony. Elements of drama and expert voices, as usual, make these programmes informative yet captivating. Currently, Lawson is looking for projects that realistically may be aired in 2026 and 2027.
Finally, another area of interest for NatGeo commissioning are anniversary docs, namely “one-off specials that revisit an internationally recognised event” and “stories that need to sit firmly within the yellow border.” NatGeo aims to produce one or two of these titles per year. Relevant examples are Ukraine: War from the Air; Attack on Pearl Harbour: Minute by Minute and Tut’s Toxic Tomb.
Towards the end of the conversation, Noot explained how projects can sometimes move from different strands, such as in the case of Lost Treasures of Egypt, which kicked off as ‘International’ (after attracting some partners like Channel4 and SBS) and, after the second season, was promoted to ‘Global.’
Finally, he spoke about two more projects – Pirates: Behind the Legend (almost entirely funded by NatGeo with Abacus attached as a distribution partner) and Northwood Survival (produced in co-operation with Amazon Prime Canada, PTN and Blue Ant). NatGeo is open to “supplemental content” in both areas – wild, extreme climates and history docs spanning ancient times and early modern history.
Producers interested in approaching NatGeo and aiming to air their projects in 2026 should deliver in 2025 and take into account a 90-day window for content to be translated across all regions. NatGeo operates on the Disney+ fiscal year, the Sunny Side audience was told.
