Building Solutions with Audience Demographics

As our industry faces enormous challenges with digital monopolization, the advent of AI technology, a crumbling exhibition landscape, risk-averse funders, and the drudgery of mass appeal IP, it is hard to predict what solutions will lead to a robust marketplace for documentary storytellers. To build a sustainable future, creators and producers need to be knowledgeable about viewer behavior to successfully connect films with increasingly diversified audiences. Enter Keri Putnam, former CEO of the Sundance Institute and current fellow of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, who comes to Doc Stories to present her historic research on US audience demographics and consumption patterns as it relates specifically to documentary film. With unique access and insight, Putnam’s research offers a rare opportunity to use quantitative data to examine alternative pathways for engaging audiences and ensure non-fiction filmmaking continues to thrive.
—Jessie Fairbanks