ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the case study of A&E IndieFilms (2005-present), the feature documentary division of A&E Networks, in order to consider how it has sought to mobilise explicit appeals to indieness, as evident both in its appellation and its activities, in the service of the parent company's own brand identity, and its attempts to court younger and more upscale audiences for its roster of channels during an era of corporate realignment. In so doing, it brings together three areas of scholarship that have rarely coalesced in studies of media companies, namely those that cover documentary film, American indie cinema, and contemporary American television. It mobilises this convergence in order to better grasp A&E IndieFilms’ own identity as a product of convergence – of the forces of industrial and technological realignment bringing what were once more discrete areas of activity ever closer together, but one in turn imperilled by the most recent phase of convergence in the form of streaming services such as Netflix and Apple TV+. Ultimately, it points to the precarity of documentary filmmaking as indie TV when mobilised as an aspect of commercial television strategy.
