PBS

"I am convinced that public service broadcasting is essential to public life in contemporary Ireland, [but] I am also aware that what we have traditionally understood to be public service broadcasting may no longer be fit for 21st-century purpose.”

These were the forceful opening remarks of Moya Doherty in delivering the RTS Republic of Ireland’s inaugural Gay Byrne Memorial Lecture at the Light House Cinema, Dublin, this month.

Can something as apparently ephemeral as a TV programme be genuinely cathartic and help to bring a measure of healing, perhaps even closure, to a national tragedy? That was the hope behind the making of The Vietnam War, the acclaimed documentary made by Ken Burns and his long-time collaborator Lynn Novick.

Last month, PBS America began showing the 18-hour directors’ cut in the UK. This followed the British premiere of the 10-hour version by BBC Four last autumn and its repeat over Christmas.

Professor Beard, who appears alongside British historians Simon Schama and David Olusoga in the series, has been replaced onscreen with a voiceover by American actor Liev Schrieber. The show following in the footsteps of Kenneth Clarke’s landmark series of the same name in 1969.

Public broadcasting in the USA explained