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"The National Parks: America's Best Idea" Is Returning to Primetime TV Later This Month

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The National Parks: America's Best Idea is returning to primetime later this month. What impact might it have on national park visits this year? Charts via Wikipedia.

With an eye on spurring folks to start thinking about national park vacations this coming summer, The National Parks: America's Best Idea is returning to primetime TV, with the first part of the six-part documentary by Ken Burns airing on January 27 on PBS affiliates. Will it help all units of the National Park System, or just those with the "national park" appendage?

The 12-hour series certainly sparked a lot of chatter back in September when it first aired, and of course there was a lot of anticipation built up in the preceding 12 months by well-placed PR. But what effect did the September airing generate? Some concessionaires I've spoken with say it came too late in the season to make a difference. That could change, of course, with this rebroadcasting, which comes at a time when folks should be beginning to plan their summer vacations.

The series was the second most-watched series on PBS over the last decade (2000 to 2009). It reached a total audience of 33.4 million viewers. The most-watched series was The War, which counted a total audience of 37.8 million viewers and which also was produced by Mr. Burns. When The National Parks first aired, it capped off a nearly year-long national conversation about the parks and related themes, with more than 100 public television stations across the country holding events.

Additionally, 61 stations received grants to work with nearby parks and other organizations to reach communities that have not historically visited the parks. Activities included screenings, discussions, trips to parks and other hands-on learning experiences. In San Francisco, for instance, where Mr. Burns launched the outreach program on behalf of the film last April, television station KQED and partners created a storytelling and community mapping project; a similar project, Arkansas State & National Parks Initiative, created by AETNA, encouraged community members to share their experiences and promote conservation and preservation.

In Kentucky, PBS affiliate WKYU produced Mammoth Cave: A Way to Wonder, an hour-long, high-definition program that explores Mammoth Cave National Park.

In the months leading up to the broadcast of Mr. Burns' series, 93 national parks held screenings of The National Parks: This Is America, a 45-minute film produced by Florentine Films specifically for educational and engagement purposes. The national outreach culminated in a screening in New York City’s Central Park that included musical performances by Eric Benet, Gavin DeGraw, José Feliciano, Carole King, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow, and Counting Crows with Augustana. More than 5,000 people attended the event and 45 public television stations held local events with live feeds for members and supporters.

In addition, The National Park Foundation, one of the film’s underwriters and a partner in the outreach initiative, hosted a national day of service and celebration, National Public Lands Day, at more than 250 park and park partner venues on September 26th. Thanks to the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, one of the film’s underwriters and a funder of the outreach initiative, the NPF also is investing $1 million in “America’s Best Idea Grants” for parks to continue using the film to reach traditionally under-served groups and empower them to create strong, lasting bonds with the national parks.

According to the folks at PBS, The National Parks had a huge online presence. The program's 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 retailers such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Costco and Amazon.com. “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.

But....what impact did the documentary have on the National Park System overall? That's certainly a legitimate question, but it's also one that's hard to quantify. There certainly was a "Burns Bump," as the attached chart clearly shows, with visitor traffic spiking in late September and early October. And, as noted above, some concessionaires say the initial showing came too late in the travel year to help much. Still, many units of the National Park System had notably higher visitation in 2009, possibly a result of the chatter created in advance of the documentary's showing, possibly a result of the sour economy and folks deciding to vacation closer to home.

And yet, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that unless a unit of the system had the "national park" appendage, the documentary didn't benefit them that greatly. Indeed, there was a measure of criticism in the wake of the series' premier last fall that Mr. Burns and Mr. Duncan spent too much time in Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, and not enough, if any, in the national seashores, national monuments, and national historic sites.

And if you look at the second chart, it clearly shows that while overall National Park System visitation did quite well around the first broadcast, smaller units of the system, such as Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, didn't really notice a bump.

With that said, if you weren't able to see all six parts initially, haven't invested in the DVD set, or simply want to revisit this documentary, mark your calendars and synchronize your DVRs. And then make plans to visit one of the 392 units of the National Park System this coming year.

Comments

I was able to watch all 12 hours of this wonderful program on my computer at work (don't tell my boss! it has been very slow in the office and I finished all my projects. lol). It was certainly very cool of PBS to put it on their website, especially in Flash format since I can't access regular streaming due to being blocked by my employer. ;)

That being said, the re-airing of the series won't impact the planning for my summer vacation. That's because we're already planning to go to Crater Lake and Redwoods this year in July! Looking very much forward to this trip....and it is still six months away.


My class is watching this wonderful series. So far we have watched the first two episodes and will watch the third this Thursday. I live between Mt. Rainier and the Olympics so I have amazing opportunities to visit the parks.


The series was the second most-watched series on PBS over the last decade (2000 to 2009).

Can you tell us what the source of this and similar statistics is? It seemed to have run several times during the week of the first release alone, plus several more. Do you know many times PBS has run the whole series and how that compares with other PBS reruns?


The source was PBS. Not sure as to the answer to your second question, though.


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