Discovery Sells Off Another Oscar Winner, But Why?

For the second year in a row, Discovery Channel has owned the television rights to the Best Documentary Feature Oscar winner - and for the second year in a row Discovery Channel has sold those rights to another network.

Fillmmaker James Marsh and Sundance Channel's Christian Vesper have confirmed that MAN ON WIRE, this year's acclaimed Oscar winning film about Phillipe Petit's 1974 wire walk between the Twin Towers, has been sold by Discovery to the Sundance Channel.  The film will air on Sundance this fall. 

Discovery had helped fund production on MAN ON WIRE through its defunct theatrical unit, Discovery Films.  Messages left for Discovery's representatives to comment were not returned by press time.

Last year, Discovery sold off its first run television rights of TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE to HBO.  At the time, many speculated that the move was made because Discovery (which is based just outside Washington DC in Silver Spring, MD) was afraid to run the controversial film about torture and the Bush Administration in the middle of an election season and just prior to Discovery Communications going public.

Clearly, neither of those issues are at play here.  Some suspect it's just the final signal that Discovery - which had once made a serious play to be in the longform nonfiction business - has folded up its documentary ambitions and gone home. 

In November of last year, Discovery parted ways with legendary newsman Ted Koppel, who had joined the network with much fanfare after leaving ABC News' Nightline.  At the time, Koppel cited the significant changes in senior management at the company.  For its part, Discovery Channel president John Ford told Broadcasting and Cable:

“We want timeless programming that has shelf life, and also programming that can go global. Given that, it is not as great a fit as one might have thought before. Anything Ted Koppel does is topical, but it is from an American journalist’s point of view. The core of discovery is continuing along that timeless and global route. There is just less and less of an interest in things that have a short shelf life.”

Comments

[hanna]

Discovery is a great channel. I can spend most of my movie time on this channel.