Nat Geo boss lifts lid on international strategy

Monroe, who was named global chief executive of the broadcaster in November, said that she would invest in fewer, bigger shows to cut through the cable clutter.

She highlighted forthcoming series including Nutopia’s One Strange Rock, Morgan Freeman-fronted The Story of God, produced by the actor’s Revelations Entertainment, and Imagine Entertainment’s Mars series Red Planet.

At a keynote address at Realscreen in Washington, DC, she said: “Our focus and emphasis is really on stories that resonate with audiences around the world and the good news is that the way that viewers perceive Nat Geo around the world is actually quite similar. The Nat Geographic in Asia doesn’t have to be different to the National Geographic in the US.”

The former HBO exec said that she would continue to commission some shows outside of the US, but fewer than before, a move that will hurt the company’s Hamish Mykura-run London-based commissioning hub.

“We will still do local productions, there will still be shows that just air regionally and we’re going to try to be flexible and creative in our deal-making when it comes to co-productions - but our first choice and our preference is to find big global stories,” she added.

She said that the strategy, helped by significant investment from 21st Century Fox, had been introduced to compete with the growing number of original non-scripted series launching in the US. She pointed to the “staggering” 750 original non-scripted commissions on-air in the US, including 350 new shows, dwarfing the number of scripted shows.

Monroe was responsible for the launch of HBO’s OTT service HBO Go when she was in charge of marketing at the Time Warner-owned premium broadcaster.

She revealed that Nat Geo was eyeing a similar strategy to appeal to cord-cutters and had begun initial conversations with Fox.

“We’re exploring all sorts of new products that can attract consumers that aren’t watching TV via traditional means. We’ll be experimenting,” she added.