thumb|Some of the course materials produced by The Teaching Company, July 2013
thumb|A former company logo
The Teaching Company, doing business as The Great Courses Plus and formerly Wondrium, is an educational media production company which produces courses, documentaries, and series. The company distributes their content globally through a mix of direct-to-consumer models, such as their streaming service Wondrium.com and TheGreatCourses.com, as well as distribution through third party platforms like the Apple TV app, Audible, Amazon Prime, and Roku.
The Teaching Company, founded by Tom Rollins in 1990, changed its name to The Great Courses and then to Wondrium before returning to The Great Courses. It is currently owned by Brentwood Associates PE and is headquartered in Chantilly which is west of Fairfax, Virginia.
History
In 1990, the company was founded by Thomas M. Rollins, former chief counsel of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. He had been inspired by a 10-hour video-taped lecture series by Irving Younger which he watched to prepare for an exam while at Harvard Law School. He recruited professors and experts to record lectures, with the first courses covering psychology, political theory, and Shakespeare. After the acquisition, over 6,000 hours of content were digitized, and the number of courses circulated rose from 20 million to 70 million. A year later, it introduced The Great Courses Signature Collection, a subset of Great Courses content offered as a subscription video service through third party platforms like Comcast, Apple TV, and Roku Channels. Along with the rebranding, the company announced 1,000 hours of new content sourced from licensing agreements with Kino Lorber, MagellanTV, and Craftsy.
As of 2021, it included over 7,500 hours of content in the format of documentaries, independent films, docuseries, short-form series, featurettes, courses, and tutorials. There are over 1,200 titles with more than 26,000 lectures. The Wondrium line of content also focuses on learning experiences outside of the influence of traditional university curriculum and takes other forms of content outside of courses such as documentaries, docuseries, and travelogues.
Content covers different subjects and categories such as science, math, economics, literature, language, history, religion, philosophy, fine arts, music, better living, health, wellness, how-to courses, personal enrichment, hobbies and leisure, and travel.
Professors and experts
Most programs are delivered by experts in their respective field. The lectures often involve computer graphics and animations; some offer an optional PDF guidebook to serve as a custom-made textbook for the course.
- The Life and Times of Beethoven
- Falling in Love with Romance Movies
- Raising Curious Kids
Distribution
The Great Courses Plus
The Great Courses Plus is the company's direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service that offers most of what The Great Courses produces as well as additional licensed non-fiction content from select partners. In 2021, it offered about 7,500 hours of content with three pricing options: a monthly plan, a quarterly plan, and an annual plan. It contains a limited portion of the total count of Wondrium, and The Great Courses produces and releases it relative to the Wondrium streaming service. This collection consists of more than 300 courses on subjects such as philosophy, ancient and modern history, photography, professional development, science and cooking. Customers can choose from over 1,200 titles in subject categories including the arts, science, literature, self-improvement, history, music, philosophy, theology, economics, mathematics, business, professional advancement, photography, and cooking. and it features over 650 hours of nonfiction programming from Wondrium. It is available through SelectTV (FreeCast) Roku, Xumo, and other services. The first vacation was a 9-day, 8-night trip inspired by the company's course Exploring the Mayan World. The vacations are usually in Europe.
- John Lewis: Witness to History (Nominee, 2021: History/Short-format)
Webby Award
- John Lewis: Witness to History (Winner, 2021: People's Choice Documentary in History)