Broadcaster Dan Snow has sold his Netflix-style streaming service and popular podcast business to Little Dot Studios, the digital content firm owned by Fleabag and 1917 producer All3Media.
Snow, a favourite among history enthusiasts for programmes including Battlefield Britain, The Vikings Uncovered and Operation Goldrush, set up his History Hit on-demand TV and audio network three years ago.
The podcast network, led by Dan Snow’s History Hit, averages about 3m listens per month. Combined with subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service HistoryHit.TV, which at £5.99 a month is priced the same as Disney+ and BritBox, Snow’s business has more than 100,000 subscribers.
When Snow launched the SVOD service he said part of his motivation was to break away from the constraints of traditional TV where shows needed to be made for the broadest audiences to chase ratings, which often means it appeared “dumbed down” to real history buffs.
He said: “I started History Hit TV because I believed that there was an audience for high-quality history, told by the world’s best historians, which was not being served by the traditional media.
“Today is the next phase. Little Dot is the perfect home for us. We are going to transform the way people watch and listen. Always innovating but never forgetting that the key is giving our hugely sophisticated, highly engaged audience what they struggle to find elsewhere: high-quality history.”
Little Dot Studios manages nearly 600 YouTube channels, Facebook pages and social video content with partners including the FA, Formula E, Channel 4 and Discovery.
The company, a subsidiary of Liberty Global and Discovery’s jointly owned All3Media, has been pushing into history with digital brands Timeline and Absolute History.
Andy Taylor, co-founder of Little Dot Studios, said: “As factual history programming has fallen out of favour with some traditional broadcasters it has boomed on digital platforms across all age groups. History content is an important part of our business and we see potential for substantial growth in this area.”
Snow, who is the son of TV presenter Peter Snow, will work exclusively with History Hit and Little Dot Studios to create new online and broadcast content.
