Documentaries don’t exact draw blockbuster draw and revenue with their very centralized themes and focused audiences. The skilled documentarian is somewhat of an anomaly in the world of filmmaking in that though the spirit of the craft is along the same vein their means of distribution take on the most amebous of forms.

In Israel, the threat of the endangered documentary in its reliance on certain forces of marketing is looming heavily as the satellite television provider company Yes faces sanctions which are forcing it to sell its Documentary Broadcasting channel. According to Hareetz.com, “Yes could be facing up to NIS 40 million in sanctions imposed by the Communications Ministry’s Council for Cable TV and Satellite Broadcasting, which says the satellite provider has not met its obligation to spend half the money allotted to original programming on stations operated by outside companies.”

The consequences of this sanctions, if they pass, would be astronomical for the documentaries made in Israel reaching any type of monetary gain given that they would be in competition with cheap, in house knock offs from the third party company that obtains Yes’s documentary channel. The Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum presented all persons of interest with persuasive arguments against the move, as it would severely threaten the business of documentary films.

Yes awaits a hearing on December 22 which could assess the sanctions or charge a fine, a decision that carries as much weight as the fines in question.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Featured, Film Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.