The World According to Zandland - Issue #9
The Only Real Leverage Is Making Things. Lessons from speaking at Netflix and MIP London
This week has been one of those moments where multiple strands of thinking all collided at once.
I spoke at MIP London about documentary funding and sustainability.
I spoke at Netflix in London about how streamers have changed documentary.
And inside Zandland, we’ve been restructuring how we actually operate day-to-day.
All three conversations are pointing to the same reality:
we are now fully in a hybrid era.
Not TV. Not streaming. Not digital. Not brand-funded. Not even YouTube.
Instead it’s everything, everywhere, all at once.
And if you want to build something that lasts, you have to design for that complexity, not pretend one lane will save you.
MIP London — how documentaries actually get made now
At MIP, the conversation was about one practical question:
How do you make documentary funding work in this environment?
Zandland’s conclusion is that sustainability now depends on operating across multiple scales at the same time.
You need something you can realistically release every week, building brand, audience, and leverage.
And a version of that thing should be able to go to the level of Netflix, Hulu, or a major streamer when the opportunity is right.
Both are necessary.
If you only chase premium commissions, you’re permanently dependent on gatekeepers.
If you only make digital content, you cap your scale.
So the structure has to hold both.
This doesn’t mean you need to be huge, it means you need to figure out a form of content that can live in these different levels of scale. For us, every bit of content, from our digital originals to big budget series, have the same Zandland sauce. Our conclusion is that documentary companies now need to think less like traditional TV producers… and more like tech start-ups.
Which means asking questions most production companies still avoid:
Who is our audience, actually?
What’s our total addressable market?
Where is product–market fit?
How much capital do we need to test long enough to find it?
And how quickly can we pivot if something isn’t working?
That mindset is still rare in television.
Too many companies are still optimising for commissioning cycles instead of audience behaviour.
Too many are still scared to test in public.
Too many are still building projects, not repeatable systems.
Netflix London — how streamers changed documentary (and what happens next)
At Netflix this week I spoke with leaders in the documentary space about how streamers have transformed the industry .
Fun fact, if you’re an eager beaver and you immediately read this newsletter, I am actually due to speak at Netflix in about 2 hours - so you have travelled into the future and entered a future version of my brain… so, hello?
The shift is obviously profound.
Streamers didn’t just add money.
They changed scale. They changed expectations. They changed ambition. They changed visibility.
Documentaries moved from niche broadcast slots to global cultural events.
Series structures became dominant. Production values rose… but competition also intensified. Access became harder. Stakes became higher.
For a period, that expansion felt like the defining transformation.
But my reading of the moment now is different.
The golden era of streamer-led documentary expansion is dead. We are in the next phase.
A phase where:
YouTube dominates attention.
Streamers take fewer risks.
Audience ownership becomes leverage.
Studios become story brands.
Distribution fragments again.
Premium commissions still matter, hugely, but they no longer define the entire ecosystem.
The structure of documentary is evolving again.
And the central strategic question is no longer:
“Who funds this project?”
It’s:
“Who owns the audience?”
How that translates into what we’re doing at Zandland
Inside Zandland we’ve been reorganising around that reality.
Building an audience is not just a creative challenge.
It’s an operational system.
It’s about designing a structure where everything feeds everything else — instead of scattering effort across platforms.
That’s why we’ve clarified our model around two core content pillars.
The two pillars
1) Investigative documentaries
Deep access. Real-world immersion. Original reporting.
This is the work designed to scale — culturally, editorially, and commercially.
Last night we released the newest one (it’s currently the best performing yet):
👉
These films are built around a simple proposition:
we go somewhere you can’t go, and show you something you wouldn’t otherwise see.
2) The weekly explainer / podcast / interview format
This is the second lane.
Part explainer.
Part podcast.
Part editorial thinking.
A place where we unpack what we’re seeing, connect patterns between stories, and share how we understand the world.
👉
This format builds continuity and a direct relationship with the audience.
Trust is not built from occasional big releases.
It’s built from regular presence.
The operational change that made this possible
We’ve made a physical change that sounds small but has changed everything.
Part of the office is now a permanent studio.
Rigged. Lit. Ready. Always on.
No set-up. No friction. No delay.
The conclusion from this is simple: production velocity is often an infrastructure problem, not a creative one.
Removing barriers to filming has dramatically increased consistency. It’s a bit like saying you want to go to the gym, but not going because it’s a bus ride away and it’s cold outside. Lose the bus ride and the cold, put the gym equipment in your house!
One virtuous content loop
The goal is not just more content.
The goal is a system.
The two video pillars now feed everything:
short clips
social cut-downs
live conversations
this newsletter
membership content
premium development
Everything flows from the same core material.
That creates clarity.
The team knows what to prioritise.
The audience knows what to expect.
The brand compounds instead of diffusing.
Efficiency through focus.
Where memberships and platforms fit
In practical terms, our platform structure now looks like this:
YouTube → reach, discovery, and membership community
Substack → thinking, context, and deeper relationship
Premium commissions → scale, impact, and major storytelling
Different layers of the same ecosystem.
Substack’s own growth guidance reinforces this… consistency, clarity of value, and strong community interaction are what drive conversion and retention.
So each platform has a defined role.
Nothing duplicated.
Nothing competing internally.
The bigger picture
If I step back from this week, from MIP, Netflix, and our internal changes — the pattern is clear.
Documentary companies are no longer just producers.
They are multi-platform operators.
Audience builders.
Brand systems.
Content engines.
Zandland’s conclusion is that success now depends less on any individual film…
and more on whether your structure allows you to keep making them, learning, adapting, and scaling.
That’s the phase we’re in now.
Thanks for reading (also let me know if you agree or disagree, happy to discuss).
— Ben Zand