Education: Graduating from Ancilliary to Primary

In 1942, in an effort to motivate and mobilize America's young men to war, the Morale Branch of the U.S. Army commissioned Major Frank Capra to make a series of factual films that would explain why the U.S. was entering the war, and the principles for which it was fighting. The effectiveness of the resulting seven-part film, Why We Fight, was later recognized by a German chief of general staff who reportedly remarked: "We had everything calculated perfectly except the speed with which the Allies were able to train their people for war. Our major miscalculation was in underestimating their quick and complete mastery of film education."

Skip forward six decades and film has become a widely adopted educational tool. And as playback and delivery systems become increasingly efficient, the sector's demand for content keeps rising. "As we move from VHS to DVD and eventually to digital delivery, teachers are incorporating [films] into their curriculum and how they teach," says Elizabeth Sheldon, director of acquisitions and coproductions at Wynnewood, U.S.-based Schlessinger Media, the programming division of Library Video Company (LVC). "Twenty years ago," she continues, "video was considered much more ancillary."

Founded in 1985, LVC has distributed film-based content to the educational market for two decades. The company recently acquired hardware supplier Safari Video Networks and in May introduced Safari Montage, a VOD server for the K-to-12 marketplace that comes pre-loaded with 1,000 video segments and full programs.

The demand from the ed market represents a substantial source of revenue to factual content creators and rights holders. The niche encompasses all non-paying audiences, including prisons, community centers, government organizations and distance learning institutes, but schools and universities are widely recognized as the most lucrative clients. Andrew Schlessinger, the founder and CEO of LVC, says that in the U.S., primary and secondary schools spend a combined US$150 million a year on hard copy VHS and DVD products. "However, that number is rapidly growing and perhaps doubling due to technology money that is available to support digital video delivery," he notes. "With new budgets for digital video delivery, you've got maybe close to $200 million being spent this year, going quickly to $300 million." Schlessinger says that by the end of the year, 25% to 35% of the company's revenue could come from digital video delivery, whereas 70% of its current sales are for VHS and 30% are for DVD.

Yet many producers and distributors fail to capitalize on the ed market's potential. This is partly because it is considerably more robust in the U.S. than in Europe, where government initiatives and publicly funded bodies provide audiovisual material for little or no money. However, to ignore the educational market where it's vibrant - particularly in the U.S., but also in Canada, Australia, parts of Asia and to some extent the U.K. - is short sighted. Most significantly, what differentiates this market from its commercial counterpart is longevity. "Your traditional distributor and producer are after immediate returns," says Julian Mobbs, head of sales and business development for Channel 4 Learning in London, the educational sales and distribution arm of Channel 4 Television. "A broadcast sale... means you've got money in the bank right away, but if that broadcaster doesn't want your program after a period, then that's it - there's no medium- or long-term returns. In the educational market, your product or series might last for 20 years. The royalties will keep trickling in."