Fox’s National Geographic will launch an on-demand service in Greece and Denmark in 2018.
Speaking to Variety, Jan Koeppen, president, Fox Networks Group Europe and Africa, said National Geographic+ has been designed to appeal to the millennial demographic.
He said he wants the factual on-demand service to allow viewers to binge the same way they do with drama.
“There has been a misconception that VoD is all about scripted,” Koeppen said. “People have been a bit shy about VoD in factual because everybody is so excited about the drama and, to a certain extent, comedy world. We think there is a real demand on the factual side, too, but we have to put a new face on what factual actually means in non-linear.”
Fox has signed deals to launch National Geographic+ with OTE’s Cosmote service in Greece and the YouSee pay-TV platform in Denmark in 2018.
“We have to think differently to the linear world and how things are served up there,” Koeppen said. “If you want to create an environment in which you can binge, I think offering content title by title is not the way to do it. Everyone has latched onto the idea of box sets, and people understand what that means, so while internally we call them ‘topics,’ that’s what this is.”
