Our Roots
Independent TV producer Mark Stucke founded the company in 1990. One of the first to make the new co-production formula work for the independent sector, Mark produced cutting edge documentaries and magazine features for most of the world's leading broadcasters. After four impoverished years traipsing around the world's most risky places, from the Gulf War to Sarajevo to Somalia, he realised that with a wealth of valuable copyright in his library he would be foolish to continue producing such dangerous material for the pay he was receiving for his work. It was at this stage that he set his mind to formulating a distribution system, which would bring greater returns to broadcast journalists. As the company's experience grew it utilised a unique knowledge of one of the most difficult markets in the world to become one of Europe's leading factual distributors. Today the company has a very successful commercial catalogue as well as remaining at the cutting-edge of international actuality.
Our Mission
The free flow of information is the elixir of healthy democratic life. As journalists the company has spent ten years at the forefront of the international current affairs agenda. We've helped uncover and shed light on some of the most dangerous international issues of the last decade. Cutting edge documentaries produced by our group have helped to change the world for the better. Our films have had an impact on the proliferation of the corporate mercenary who kills for diamonds, others have driven the human rights agenda in China, and one of our most recent films is turning heads in Washington with its incisive exposure of the nastier side of the US drugs war being waged in South America. Such films define who we are and where we shall remain. Our dedication is to the producers who believe such stories are worth making despite the time, danger and self inflicted poverty, which often comes with the territory. Our promise is to make their endeavours not only broadcast but to also create new revenue for their work into the future.
Journeyman Today
Having grown as rights owning producers in the independent sector our success and keen ability to sell grows from an intimate knowledge of the bottom line. As independent producers our survival depended on it. Ten years on our hungry sales team have become the central element of the company, utilising a deep understanding of the factual market to dominate the international circuit.
We market the films of many renowned independents and broadcasters. The key to factual marketing is a sales culture centred on reactivity, topicality and the rapidly developing multi-media industry. It's what makes it a very different business from most other television marketing. Our sales team has a central journalistic ethic. We strive to offer a constant turnover of up-to-date and relevant documentaries and features. To us it means selling what relates and amplifies the day's interests.
Each week our films are broadcast to roughly 10 million people around the world. Many European actuality programmers rely on our supply. It's enabled us to become one of the largest actuality archives. But a large library all too often becomes a dead and inactive library, filled with films, which saw the light of day just once, but are now forgotten and buried, impossible to find. Not at Journeyman. A combination of the web's interactivity, a powerful publicity machine and a topical sales focus means films remain easy to discover, and continually on offer.
The Operation
At the heart of sales is our newsletter, the Journeyman Weekly, faxed and e-mailed to feature buyers around the world. It includes a weekly rundown of Journeyman's offerings and topical features from the archive. The Journeyman Weekly is uploaded to our internet site with streaming video from the films. An absolute emphasis on speed, lightning delivery, and constant liaison with our producers and the market gives us a distinct edge.
We recognise there are few arenas as important to television distribution as the internet. Journeyman had an internet site with archive database, video samples and on-line ordering before anyone else. Many of our clients rely on the site. Through the internet, Journeyman offers an alternative, user-friendly interface with TV buyers, broadcast and non-theatrical.
The Future
In a dumbed-down world driven by the relentless demand of ratings we see international analysis and socio-political coverage slimmed to wafer thin. The independent sector, freelancers, and indeed broadcasters, are having an increasingly difficult job getting their foreign actuality placed. But we at Journeyman believe a world in which the mainstream is swamped with popular material can help to bring focus on the minority. Multimedia developments offer diverse and different broadcast potential in a way never possible before. They offer new platforms to a niche previously too small to justify much airplay on terrestrial TV. Recent technological developments are changing all that and we at Journeyman have firm plans to ensure we remain on the cutting-edge to ensure greater returns and viewing numbers into the future. Perhaps it won't be too long before international news junkies tune into their own Journeyman TV station, a TV station where the client is the programmer. Where would you like to go tonight?
