Someone was talking in another thread about Ken Burns’ Prohibition documentary, and it was on tonight. Very interesting. Glad to have the station. It looks like there are lots of interesting shows on it. Sorry if this seems bloggy!
(By the way, not in US so PBS is unexpected)
That is a little surprising.
I wonder if they’re going to bug you for donations during Pledge Weeks.
Interesting; I wonder if you’re getting the feed from a particular station, or the PBS network feed (my understanding is that individual stations have a fair amount of leeway as to what they run, and when, though there seems to be a “standard” network feed).
I just looked it up.
So it doesn’t look like I’ll be bugged for pledges.
I’ve only seen the American shows that were on last night on it, haven’t seen any of the UK shows.
Roomie records shows from PBS all the time. Invariably, they are British dramas.
Sounds like they’re not going to show any of the British stuff they show in the US. Probably don’t have rights in the UK, and what would be the point anyway?
It does sound like an interesting channel. I’ve always been curious about what PBS is like. Not quite enough to make me subscribe to Sky or Virgin though.
You can watch the American version of the Antiques Roadshow, and chuckle at how “old” the items typically are.
But more seriously, some regular shows I like are: Nova, Frontline, Secrets of the Dead, and History Detectives. If you have some interest in US history, you might occasionally check out The American Experience, depending on the topic.
Also, PBS usually re-runs a couple of Ken Burns’ documentaries sometime during the year. An Gadaí mentions “Prohibition”, a new one of his, which will probably be shown again a few months from now (if PBS sticks to habit).
Look out also for Great Performances. Hugh Laurie was on the last one I saw a few weeks ago. We followed him on a musical pilgrimage to New Orleans.
For Americans, we’ll be running a sequel to Downton Abbey beginning in January. We’re re-running the original in December.
kenobi 65, stations do have leeway; we air programming from other sources besides PBS. Also, we have three channels, so we can program repeats more frequently (which is actually a good thing, allowing people to time-shift live, as it were). Our third channel is all-Kentucky related programming, mostly stuff we produce but also from other sources.
My thoughts exactly. I wonder if they plan on launching on Freeview when a slot comes available?
I thought at the minimum everyone got PBS. If not through cable it’s almost always available over the air.
Yeah, but you’d need a huge antenna to pick it up in Ireland…
Oops. Didn’t know the OP is in Ireland.
No doubt. Over on this side, without PBS millions of Americans would never have grown up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Prisoner, Doctor Who (A roommate had a license plate on her car: CARDIS), Dave Allen At Large, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Sherlock Holmes, and the rest.
Can’t forget The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
But also, a lot of American UHF stations used to run British programming. I actually saw Dave Allen on UHF first (fuzzily), along with The Two Ronnies and other shows from that timeframe. However, those programming choices were entirely up to each individual station.
It’s kind of like the reverse of BBC America, which is one of my favorite channels here in the US and which shows some of the better stuff from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, etc. (It also shows some crappy UK programming as well.)
Yeah I remembered to put in that I wasn’t in the US at the bottom of the post, otherwise this would be the worst thread ever.
Don’t forget Blackadder!
Also chiming in to mention that I just found out that you can stream a ton of PBS programming directly from their website for free. Just watched Page Eight in its entirety last night.
There doesn’t need to be a point. BBC-America plays The X-Files and a couple of other US shows, so this “point” thing obviously eludes networks.
Yes. Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek TNG are two of those other shows. BBC America’s logic seems to be: if there’s at least one British actor in the cast, it’s British enough for us.
It annoys me that BBC America plays US shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: TNG (and also movies with a weak connection to the UK). These shows were already being shown on other US cable channels. I watch BBC America for UK shows not otherwise available in the US.