Jonathan Franzen

[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?

[HarryT]

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?

In the UK there's a BBC TV channel (BBC 4) which is dedicated to documentaries.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Yes, shows like that do get broadcast in Australia. We have two channels that are government owned and part of their mandate is to show documentaries. One of them will broadcast non-English shows with subtitles.

Replace "non-English" with "non-Dutch", and it's the same here.

Actually, most documentaries in the Netherlands are non-Dutch. Some documentaries, such as "Forensic Detectives" a while ago are in English with subtitles, but with the English narrator replaced by a Dutch one. (I don't really understand things like that. Why not just subtitle the narrator too?)

[taming]

In Canada there is Book Television, a digital cable station. I wish I could say that it was all books, all the time, but it's not. The associated website is awful and does not even have a current schedule. I recently read that they are petitioning to have their agreement changed so that they can air even fewer book related programming.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle13278511/

from the article:

The channel was licensed with the understanding it would broadcast talk shows, dramas and documentaries based on books. It agreed that only 35 per cent of its programming would be made up of dramas and comedies, but wanted that increased to 50 per cent. It also wanted restrictions lifted on the amount of drama and comedy it can show during primetime.

Bell hoped the changes could attract new viewers with comedies and dramas. A sampling of its schedule for July 17 shows two episodes of Writer’s Hotlist that are repeated later in the day and four episodes of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

[fjtorres]

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.

[crich70]

Biography has done programs about authors before (Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler among them) so I don't see why other authors might not be talked about on TV.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

Biography has done programs about authors before (Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler among them) so I don't see why other authors might not be talked about on TV.

They have been.
History Channel has a couple different documentaries on comic books.
Netflix has at least one on Ayn Rand.
If actively look for them, you can find them.

[taming]

Actually, Canada has amazing documentaries on the very mainstream CBC. See: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/index.html There is also the CBC Documentary channel http://www.cbc.ca/documentarychannel/.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by taming

Actually, Canada has amazing documentaries on the very mainstream CBC. See: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/index.html There is also the CBC Documentary channel http://www.cbc.ca/documentarychannel/.

And, although it's CBC radio rather than TV, the program Writers & Co. is excellent. Famous authors from all over the world are interviewed for an hour. I have yet to listen to a program that I didn't like. Eleanor Wachtel is a wonderful interviewer. The last couple of months of programs are available as podcasts from the CBC Radio website.

[Istvan diVega]

Norwegian TV is very much like its Swedish counterpart, as I'm sure you know. Plenty documentaries on the state-run channels and the commercial channels are also required by their licensing terms to be more than simply purveyors of brain-dead entertainment. We tend to get a lot of documentaries from the BBC as well as the other British channels, but also material from all over the world. France and Germany regularly comes up with truly excellent documentaries, each often with a different flavour and slant to the British material. Canada too, as taming mentioned, makes some really good stuff.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Some documentaries, such as "Forensic Detectives" a while ago are in English with subtitles, but with the English narrator replaced by a Dutch one. (I don't really understand things like that. Why not just subtitle the narrator too?)

The really strange example, in my view, are British documentaries shown in the US on PBS (elsewhere too maybe, I don't know), which almost always have the original narration track swapped for an American one. The titles are often changed too, so I've often wondered if it's an attempt to pass them off as US-produced programs.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

The really strange example, in my view, are British documentaries shown in the US on PBS (elsewhere too maybe, I don't know), which almost always have the original narration track swapped for an American one. The titles are often changed too, so I've often wondered if it's an attempt to pass them off as US-produced programs.

I think it's more just a way of tailoring the product for a given market. You see similar changes in book titles from authors like Agatha Christie. The English publisher has one title and cover and the American publisher has a different title and publisher. One example of her books was "The Murder in the Calais Coach" which was released in America under the title of "Murder on the Orient Express." The Harry Potter books are another example. And going more towards movies a movie may be cut different ways in different countries or have dialogue that changes due to what is permissible to be shown in a given culture.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

The really strange example, in my view, are British documentaries shown in the US on PBS (elsewhere too maybe, I don't know), which almost always have the original narration track swapped for an American one. The titles are often changed too, so I've often wondered if it's an attempt to pass them off as US-produced programs.

Some *are* co-financed by the american station/network.

As for the altered narration it is easy to understand: Political Correctness.
Discovery does it all the time: Out go old white males like Attenborough, in come old females like Streep and Weaver and old black males like Morgan (everywhere) Freeman. At least they're not (yet) going with the likes of Snooki or Miley Cyrus.

[llcj]

Originally Posted by rkomar

And, although it's CBC radio rather than TV, the program Writers & Co. is excellent. Famous authors from all over the world are interviewed for an hour. I have yet to listen to a program that I didn't like. Eleanor Wachtel is a wonderful interviewer. The last couple of months of programs are available as podcasts from the CBC Radio website.

I agree with this completely. I use the program as a resource for reading material and have yet to be disappointed.