PBS Documentaries Channel to Launch on Amazon

PBS Distribution is to launch a new documentary-focused Prime Video Channel on Amazon, PBS Documentaries.

Debuting August 4, the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel will include a library of programs that features the entire Ken Burns collection as well as films from NOVA, Frontline, American Masters, Nature, American Experience, Independent Lens, POV and many independent producers.

Andrea Downing, co-president of PBS Distribution, said: “PBS is the leader of high-quality, compelling nonfiction entertainment, and the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel is a natural addition to our current streaming offering on Prime Video Channels—PBS Masterpiece, PBS Living and PBS Kids. This channel will not only help bring engaging stories about life in all corners of our country to a new audience, it will provide needed revenues to sustain public broadcasting’s public-private partnership model for the benefit of all stations and the communities they serve.”

“We had long hoped to be able to have all of our films available in one place so the public would have access to the body of work,” said Burns. “We’re thrilled that this is now possible thanks to the efforts of PBS Distribution and Amazon to launch the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel and also through PBS’s Passport initiative that allows viewers to support their public television stations. Both will also contribute to the larger mission of PBS.”

“Frontline was founded on the belief that longform documentaries could inform, educate and inspire public television’s audiences—and during these historic times, deeply reported and easily accessible journalism is invaluable,” said Frontline Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath. “Through this new channel, we’re excited to see our documentaries reach new and existing streaming audiences.”

Stanley Nelson, whose The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution will be available on the channel at launch, commented, “I’m thrilled to see that my work will find a new home on this channel. PBS has become a premier destination for documentary programming in the U.S. and has been hugely invested in giving films by diverse storytellers and emerging filmmakers much-needed national exposure. I’m so glad that my film on the Black Panther Party, which can inform communities in our current historical moment, will be able to reach different audiences on this new service.”