Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
But you kind of have to search and find it on your own? It is never served up by the more main stream networks like NBC or CBS?
|
Not for a long time now.
The last time I remember any of the commercial broadcast doing anything like a traditional documentary was ABC with a pair of Peter Jennings projects. (The Century, In Search of America.)
As a rule, the commercial networks gave up the pretense of being anything but entertainment decades ago. PBS, History, Discovery, Biography, Learning Channel run lots of documentaries in movie and TV series form.
American TV thrives on narrowcasting: with a total viewership well above 300m even a 1% slice of the viewing audience makes for a viable distribution path. So there is no need for government subsidies and content follows the audience. One way or another, most interests are served. Romance? Mystery? Classic movies? Religion? Indie movies? All have separate channels. Deplorable though it may be, we even have a channel devoted solely to golf.
Americans have long learned how to navigate a flood of video content so the new flood of ebook content is not particularly daunting; we're old hands at discovery, no matter what BPH execs might think.