Family friendly films

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 13th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Family friendly streaming.

It’s been a rough year for the big players in the streaming industry. Subscriber growth is slowing. And executives at Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney are feeling the pinch. They’ve started tinkering with pricing strategies to stop the bleeding and have resorted to layoffs and hiring freezes.

REICHARD: Despite the doom and gloom in the industry as a whole, a couple of smaller family-friendly entertainment companies are optimistic about the future. Arts and media editor Collin Garbarino recently talked with executives from Pure Flix and Angel Studios.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Streaming was supposed to be the wave of the future, but many companies in the entertainment industry experienced a flood of debt rather than a windfall of profits. Maybe it costs too much to be all things to all people. Maybe knowing your audience can provide a competitive edge.

Michael Scott is CEO of Pure Flix. He says the faith-based streaming service expects to weather the industry shake up by focusing on its core mission.

MICHAEL SCOTT: Pure Flix is a faith and family place where people can come and they can know they’re going to get good clean content that’s going to uplift them, encourage them—it’s going to reinforce family values. And ultimately our hope is that it draws them closer to God.

Like Netflix, Pure Flix invests in original content—18 to 20 new series and movies a year. Everything from documentaries…

AUDIO: [Documentary trailer]

…to action adventure comedies.

AUDIO: [Trailer]

But unlike Netflix, Pure Flix aims to keep its spending tied to its revenue.

MICHAEL SCOTT: I say you’ve got to create the content in line with your membership base. Right now, we’re creating the amount of content we feel we can sustain and continue to create. As our members grow, then we’ll be able to do more. Maybe more content and better quality—a combination of both.

Pure Flix doesn’t disclose subscriber numbers, but Scott says tens of thousands of new people sign up every month to watch its library of about 3,000 titles.

MICHAEL SCOTT: Actually, we know what people want to watch. We can look at the library and say, they want to watch family-kids adventures—whatever it is. Or they want to watch titles that deal with Biblical titles—whatever it is. So we can really look at that data and say these are the areas that we need to create more content like and further go into them.

He says Pure Flix has invested heavily in its 2022 Christmas lineup, because at this time of year people are looking for clean faith-based content they can watch with the whole family.

Scott believes ultimately it’s not about what he or anyone else at Pure Flix wants to see—it’s about the preferences of the Christian families who subscribe.

MICHAEL SCOTT: And you got to say, what are the numbers telling you? What are the people saying they want more of? And then make more of that.

Angel Studios, however, isn’t merely trying to find its niche in the streaming world—it wants to disrupt the entire industry. This is the studio behind The Chosen, a TV series about the life of Jesus. Angel Studios created it with director Dallas Jenkins, using unique marketing and crowdfunding.

Jordan Harmon is president of Angel Studios. He’s not surprised by the streaming industry’s struggles because he doesn’t think Hollywood’s current model makes sense.

JORDAN HARMON: I think when you look at the current market, anybody who had any experience in business or economics could see some of the streamers spending habits and their debt going up—and their revenue not keeping up with their debt—a little unsustainable.

Harmon says Angel Studios also didn’t want a small group of executives deciding what to create.

HARMON: How do we start moving the levers away from the executives making those definitive decisions, and pass those levers into the hands of the fans. To where they’re the ones who get to make the decisions, not five executives in a room who have different biases, opinions, and values.

Angel Studios is named after the “angel” investors who crowdfund the projects. The audience decides which projects get made through their support. And the studio lets people watch for free.

Harmon says they took some of their inspiration from video games like Fortnite. It makes billions of dollars despite being free to play.

HARMON: So we’ve launched a free model where all of our content’s free. We almost don’t look at ourselves as competing with Netflix, you know, any one of these subscription models—Disney+—because no one’s going to cancel Angel Studios subscription—there’s a membership that gets you extra perks and experiences and stuff—but our model’s not built off that. It’s built off of building a community experience where you watch the content, you love the content, and then you get to pay it forward or buy collectibles or buy merchandise.

Angel considers a show a success when its original investors get paid back—with much of those profits coming from licensing and merchandising.

Angel Studios doesn’t bill itself as a “faith-based” company. But many of its latest projects are overtly Christian created by evangelical Protestants. Some critics are concerned by the founders’ association with Mormonism. When asked about his religion, Jordan Harmon said Angel Studios’ job isn’t to dictate content. It’s merely a facilitator to connect fans with creators.

HARMON: Our mission is to tell stories that amplify light. And we don’t get to decide what that is. We put principles in there based off of whatever’s noble, true, lovely, worthy of praise. These are our guiding principles. But one of the key elements of our model that was very important to us was although we want to help provide feedback and insight into what we believe that makes content win, we are the only studio who provides true and complete creative control to the creators.

Both Angel Studios and Pure Flix talk about the importance of listening to the fans. They expect giving families what they want will be the key to future success.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Collin Garbarino.

REICHARD: If you’re interested in arts and media news, as well as reviews of the latest shows and books, you can subscribe to Collin’s weekly newsletter called Muse at wng.org/newsletters.

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