''America in Primetime'' is a 2011 four-part

documentary series Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

, focusing on

television in the United States Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. , household ownership of television sets in the country is 96.7%, with approximately 114,200,000 American households owning at least one television set as of August 2013. ...

. Originally produced for and broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the series is a production by The Documentary Group, in collaboration with the

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation is the charitable arm of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The Foundation’s educational and preservation programs include the Summer Internship program, the College Television Awards ...

and

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. The rights to the series were purchased by the United Kingdom's

British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

(BBC) in 2013. The episodes were re-edited and clips of

Alan Yentob Alan Yentob (born 11 March 1947) is a BBC presenter and retired British television executive. He stepped down as Creative Director in December 2015, and was chairman of the board of trustees of the charity Kids Company from 2003 until its colla ...

introducing different segments, shot on location in different areas of America, were added. Exploring both old and new

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

, each episode centers on the evolution of certain character

archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...

s – such as female and male archetypes, misfits, and heroes – in primetime TV. The series features interviews with a wide variety of influential people in television, including actors, creators, writers and executive producers, talking about their own shows and others. The documentary features a lot of footage from the programs discussed.

Episodes

Release and reception

''America in Primetime'' was met with favourable reviews. David Bianculli, a regular contributor to the

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

radio talk show ''

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to ...

'', lauded the series, and called it "the smartest TV show about television I've seen in about 20 years." In the ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...

'', television writer David Wiegend praised the fact that viewers can not only learn about the history of television, but about the changes in American culture as well. Episodes of ''America in Primetime'' originally aired in the United States on four consecutive Sundays in late 2011, on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

. The episodes were also made available on the PBS Video website. The series was released on

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and Blu-ray Disc on January 17, 2012, and features bonus interviews. The BBC bought the UK rights to the documentary and aired it in spring 2013 under the title ''The United States of Television: America in Primetime''. The series was re-edited to a 58-minute run time and hosted by

and broadcast on BBC Two from 20 April 2013. They were shown in a different order to the original US transmission: Man of the House; The Misfit; The Independent Woman; The Crusader.

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://www.pbs.org/america-in-primetime/
''The United States of Television: America in Primetime''
at the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...