Archive for the ‘America's Best Idea’ Category

In case you missed it the 1st time: America’s Best Idea

Thursday, January 14th, 2010
The National Park Service announced this morning that the Ken Burns’ series, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” will return for an encore broadcast on PBS this month, with the first episode airing on January 27th. It will then appear on consecutive Wednesdays through March 3rd.

The series, which premiered this past September, was the second most-watched series on PBS over the last decade. It reached a total audience of 33.4 million viewers. The most-watched series was “The War,” also produced by Burns, which attracted a total audience of 37.8 million viewers.

“The National Parks” had a huge online presence as well. Its web site was the most visited program page on PBS.org during the week of broadcast and had 544,000 unique visitors between September 1st and October 31st, with 2.5 million page views in the same period. The program’s Facebook fan page boasted more than 50,000 fans by the time of the broadcast. There were more than 185,000 streams of the episodes during the two weeks they were available, making it the most-watched program on the PBS Video Portal during the week of broadcast, with viewers watching on average at least 55 minutes of the full episodes online. In comparison, the average online viewer watches only six minutes per video of content on Hulu.

Since its release on October 6, the series’ DVD set has been a best-seller at many national retailers. “The National Parks” also launched PBS’ first general-audience iPhone application, which highlighted the series, behind-the-scenes information and more.

The companion book, written by Dayton Duncan, introduced by Ken Burns and published by Alfred A. Knopf, Burns’ longtime publisher, spent seven weeks on The New York Times best-seller list.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, hiking gear store, and more.

Posted in America's Best Idea, Best of the National Parks, dayton duncan, ken burns, pbs | Comments Off

Ken Burns’ National Parks: Short Review

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
First off, let me say that I've thoroughly enjoyed National Parks: America's Best Idea. Prior to this week's broadcast, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I assumed the film would be a contemporary overview and an expose of stunning photography from the national parks. However, the film focused much more on the historical development of the national parks and park system itself. As a history buff, I'm glad Mr. Burns decided to go in this direction.

Throughout the week I certainly learned a lot. For example, I didn't realize the immense role that Horace Albright played in the formation of the modern National Park Service, as well as the acquisition of new parks during his tenure.

I also thought Mr. Burns did a fairly decent job with his overview of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Thomas Moran: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Having said all that, I do have a couple of nitpicking criticisms.

1) I thought Burns spent a disproportionate amount of time on Yosemite. I agree that Yosemite is stunningly beautiful and probably deserves more time than the average park, but it came at the cost of glossing over other major parks, namely Olympic, Glacier and Rocky Mountain National Parks. Burns favoritism for Yosemite reminded me of the way he overwhelmingly favored the New York Yankees in his otherwise excellent Baseball film. As a Cincinnati Reds fan it was just a little too much!

2) One other criticism, albeit small, is that I wish that PBS didn't have to run two-hour broadcasts of the film on six consecutive days. Towards the end of the week it started to feel like I was taking part in a marathon. I wish they would stagger programs like this across two or three weeks. Maybe do four three-hour segments over the course of two weeks, with a five minute intermission at the half-way point on each night.

Despite these, I do think that the film will result in a fairly major spike in national parks visitation next year. I'm certainly even more inspired now to visit many of the parks that have been on my list for some time.

What do you guys think? Did you like the film? Did you learn anything compelling? Do you think the Smokies were treated fairly?

If you're wishing to add to the film experience, below is the companion book (42% off) and the DVD (30% off) from Amazon:













Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, and more.

Posted in America's Best Idea, DVD, National Parks, companion book, ken burns | Comments Off