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American Experience
PBS documentary television series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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American Experience is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards,[3] about important or interesting events and people in American history.
The series premiered on October 4, 1988, and was originally titled The American Experience. It was shortened to American Experience during a rebrand and image update. The show has had a presence on the internet since 1995, and more than 100 American Experience programs are accompanied by their own internet websites, which provide background information on the subjects covered as well as teachers' guides and educational companion materials.[4] The show is produced primarily by WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, though occasionally in the early seasons it was co-produced by other PBS stations such as WNET (Channel 13) in New York City.
Some programs considered part of the American Experience collection were produced prior to the creation of the series. Vietnam: A Television History was one of them, airing originally in 1983 after taking six years to assemble.[5] Also, in 2006, American Experience rebroadcast Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, the first half of the 1986 documentary series about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
In July 2025, WGBH announced that American Experience would end new production and switch exclusively to rereleasing past episodes after airing an abbreviated 37th season that fall, and that the series' staff was being laid off.[6] WGBH CEO Susan Goldberg attributed the decision to "severe cuts in federal funding for public media."[7] Work had been halted in May on six films and no new documentaries will be produced until further notice as this is the "most expensive show funded by PBS" on a per hour basis.[8]
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Episodes
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Critical reception
American Experience has received generally positive reviews from television critics and parents of young children. Glenn McNatt of The Baltimore Sun wrote that it is "TV's finest history series ever."[9] Steve Johnson of Chicago Tribune wrote, "History comes alive in excellent docu-series."[10]
Home media
A DVD boxset collecting episodes about United States presidents was released on August 26, 2008.[11] The collection was updated to include the documentary on Bill Clinton's presidency on August 28, 2012,[12] and the documentary on George W. Bush's presidency[13] on May 4, 2020.
A DVD boxset for the five-part documentary We Shall Remain was released on May 12, 2009.[14]
Awards
References
External links
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