Former AOL executives back documentary film site

By Kenneth Li

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three former top executives of Time Warner Inc's AOL are backing a new online video venture being launched on Thursday aimed at creating a new outlet for documentary feature films, a category that has struggled to gain mainstream attention.

Founded by AOL Vice Chairman Emeritus Ted Leonsis, the site, SnagFilms, will offer about 200 feature-length films initially, with about 750 available by the end of the year.

Instead of relying on offering its films on other big Internet video portals such as AOL or Microsoft Corp's MSN, SnagFilms will let its viewers embed films on their own home pages or Facebook and MySpace pages, relying on a strategy made popular by sites such as Google Inc's YouTube.

The business is backed by Leonsis, AOL co-founder and Revolution LLC Chairman Steve Case and former AOL executive and former Time Warner board member Miles Gilburne, who is now a venture capitalist.

Former Discovery Communications executive Rick Allen is SnagFilms's CEO.

The project was born out of Leonsis's realization that documentary films, although abundant, have few options when it comes to being shown in theaters.

"I'm shocked at how broken the business infrastructure is," Leonsis said in a telephone interview.

His documentary "Nanking," about the Japanese invasion of the Chinese province, was eventually picked up for theatrical release, as well as distributed by Time Warner's HBO cable network. But of the vast majority of the 7,000 entries at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where "Nanking" made its debut, only 120 films were selected for showing and about 10 actually snatched deals.