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Discover.Film Sees Surge As Viewers Around The World Who Are Isolating Due To Coronavirus Are Turning To Quality Short Film


23 March 2020

Since the start of March when coronavirus started to spread rapidly across the globe, Discover.film has seen a surge of 220% in viewership figures as the population look to short films whilst isolated at home

In these difficult times, Discover.film has noticed a large shift in the number of its viewers turning to ‘feel good’ films. Having recognised this trend, Discover.film has created a separate ‘feel good’ category which is being updated daily to satisfy consumer demand

With large proportions of the world’s population set to isolate over the coming weeks due to the outbreak of the coronavirus Discover.film is accelerating its growing catalogue of films with many films loaded daily in order to meet its audience needs on its free platform

Demand for short form content amongst the younger generation is booming as consumer research shows that approximately half of Generation Z spends almost three hours a day watching short form content

New to the market, Discover.film is the pre-eminent global platform for quality short films having acquired 150k+ subscribers across 190 countries in less than 5 months. Thousands are signing up to its platform every week proving the global appetite for quality short form entertainment

Discover.film is in discussions with global broadcasters, hotels and global telecoms providers to satisfy increased consumer demand to watch quality content and has recently announced partnerships with  most of the worlds major airlines including Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, American Airlines, Emirates, Etihad and  Eurostar

Hollywood stars such as Danny DeVito, Sir Ian McKellen and Benedict Cumberbatch are all taking to short films which are featured on Discover.film’s platform

DEMAND for short films averaging 12 minutes is at an all-time high and increasing rapidly, with a growing number of the population confined to their homes due to coronavirus, according to Discover.film, the leading streaming platform specialising in the genre.

The outbreak of coronavirus has sparked a shift in the way viewers are watching content. Discover.film has seen a surge of 220% in films watched on its platform since the start of March and seen a drastic increase in those watching its ‘feel good’ films. Discover.film is working to meet the evolving needs of its audience and creating a separate strand of ‘feel good’ films with new content for the category uploaded daily.

The short film market is one of the fastest growing categories in the world of entertainment. The surge in new short film content is being matched by demand, as 64% of 13-17-year-olds and 60% of 18-36-year-olds are watching short form content online every week. With a large section of the population now spending so much time on the go, the generation dubbed ‘cord-cutters’ are turning to film that can be streamed on mobiles and other devices as opposed to mainstream TV.

 

 

The growing market for short films has led all the major players in the video streaming industry to commission their own quality short films – Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, BBC, NowTV and many more are all commissioning short films for their platforms as they seek to fulfil the needs of their users. Globally 11% of investment in new video content is now on developing short form content.

Discover.film is a quality streaming platform designed to be the “Netflix for short films”. With over 10,000 films typically between 10-15 minutes in length, Discover.film is attracting some of the world’s best film makers to create and showcase their short films on its platform.

Stars such as Danny DeVito, Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jack Whitehall, Bill Nighy, Brie Larson and Whoopi Goldberg, feature in some of the award-winning films on the platform, all of which are under 40 minutes in duration.

Launched in October 2019, Discover.film has already amassed 150,000 subscribers from across 190 countries, making it the leading platform for short films in the entertainment industry. Unlike many of its paid for subscription-based competitors, its freemium model allows its viewers to watch the content for free, whilst giving creative advertisers the opportunity to tell their own story in the form of a sequence of 6 second pre-rolls before each film.

 

 

Discover.film is an innovative tech company that has combined the best available technology to build a powerful infrastructure that enables it to embed its content globally on different platforms allowing robust high-quality streaming. The global roll-out of 5G is facilitating changes in consumer behaviour all over the world. Discover.film’s international reach which spans 190 countries is demonstrating the influence of new technology on the availability of quality streaming services to new emerging markets.

The premium quality of content that Discover.film curates combined with the ever-increasing demand for short films has been recognised by major telecoms providers which the company is in discussions with, as well as a number of airlines and transport companies who have already partnered with Discover.film.

Companies such as Virgin, British Airways, Qatar Airways, American Airlines, Emirates, Air Canada, KLM, National Express, South Western Railway, London Northwestern, Transpennine Express and Eurostar, have all partnered with Discover.film over the last year as they plan to increase the volume of quality short form content on their on-board platforms and adapt to the evolving preferences of their passengers.

Discover.film showcases and nurtures the best filmmaking talent from around the world, working with over 7,000 filmmakers who have previously had no premium platforms to showcase their short films on a global scale. Films such as ‘The Black Hole’ which lasts just two and a half minutes and has amassed 25 million views, and ‘The Lion’, an award winning film which has attracted millions of views on the Discover.film platform, are demonstrating the quality of short films that are being produced and the rapidly increasing appetite for them.

Sarah Thomson, Co-founder of Discover.film said “When we founded Discover.film in 2016, we saw an opportunity to position ourselves at the forefront of what was then a very nascent industry. Three and a half years on, demand for short films is at an all-time high with almost two thirds of 15 to 36 year olds watching short form content online every week. Particularly in the heat of this global crisis with millions of people being confined to their homes, we’re experiencing huge global demand on our platform to watch ‘feel good’ films’.   

“As the leading dedicated global platform for the distribution and curation of quality short films, it is great to see so many Hollywood stars turning to short films to use their creative license in a different style.

“The way people consume video content is changing with the number of ‘cord-cutters’ moving rapidly towards streaming content on the go and a huge proportion watching short content on mobile - we are meeting the audience needs as they accelerate away from traditional TV.

“Our platform has an unrivalled library of original content spanning a broad range of genres including real life, comedy, drama, sci-fi and horror, and is ideally suited to the ‘always on’ generation. We curate the highest quality short form entertainment to ensure that our audience is captivated from start to finish.”

 The 9th Discover.film Festival – London’s Leicester Square – October 2020

  • Largest worldwide prize for short films of $50,000
  • Attracting the best short film directors from around the world
  • Submissions from 110 countries
  • 7,000+ film submissions
  • Rated in the top 50 film festivals globally

Full list of partners

Cathay Pacific, Aeroflot, Air Europa, Etihad, Qatar, British Airways, Emirates, National Express, Southwest Trains, London Northwestern, Transpennine, Chiltern Rail, Virgin Trains, Eurostar, SRF Switzerland, VRT Belgium, Vodacom

 

 

Biographies

Sarah Jane Thomson - Co-founder of Discover.film
Sarah is a driven media and tech entrepreneur. She has founded, floated, acquired and run a number of businesses.  Sarah was the youngest female CEO of a listed company in the City and one of only seven women to chair or head the board of a European company and one of only three in the UK. Sarah has won numerous awards including Media Boss of the year and Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, and has appeared in many ‘one to watch’ lists.

  • In 2016 Sarah co-founded Discover.film a recently launched OTT platform for the world’s best and most entertaining Short Film.  Sourcing, curating and signing rights to the very best short films in the world it delivers to users in over 190 countries worldwide.
  • In 2006 Sarah founded First News, the UK’s only children's newspaper with more than 2 million readers. The paper is proud to represent the views of children and runs many successful campaigns including a global initiative looking to abolish the use of Child Soldiers.
  • Sarah founded Ebiquity, formerly Thomson Intermedia in 1997, within three years she went on to float it on AIM in May 2000 for £30m.  Acquiring and growing Ebiquity she spearheaded the growth of the company which saw its valuation reach in excess of £80m by 2006.  The following year, Sarah handed over the reins to a new management team. Ebiquity now employs over 500 people, analysing over $50bn worth of global media spend annually across 80 countries, and working with the top 100 global advertisers and major advertising groups.

Sarah is a philanthropist giving to many causes as well as supporting a community in Cambodia and financing the opening of a school.

She is married to Steve Thomson and has three sons.

Steve Harmston, Co-founder of Discover.film – (Responsible for technology & data)
Steve studied PPE at Magdalen College, Oxford, and as a postgraduate, Information Technology at the University of London. Founder of VentureSource Europe, a global technology database business backed by Reuters Venture Capital and successfully sold to Dow Jones. Steve worked at YouGov, as Head of SixthSense, its big data reporting business creating reports based on analysing billions of data points. He led a tech team, developing and running the reporting platform and a team of researchers applying specialist data storytelling techniques to make statistical trends accessible to clients and journalists.

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