Int’l nets acquire PBS’s Vietnam War

PBS’s doc comes from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

Broadcasters in Europe, the Middle East, Mexico, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand have licensed PBS International documentary series The Vietnam War.

VRT in Belgium, Telefonica in Spain, Foxtel in Australia, Alhurra Television in the Middle East, and Mexico’s TV UNAM and Sistema Público are among the broadcasters to have acquired the 10×60′ series.

EBS in South Korea, YES in Israel, YLE in Finland, RTÉ in Ireland, NRK in Norway, TVNZ in New Zealand and RUV in Iceland have also acquired the programme, which comes from from filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

They join PBS in the US, Arte in Germany and France, SBS in Australia, BBC in the UK and Société Radio-Canada in French Canada in taking the series from PBS International.

The documentary will premiere on PBS on September 17 and on Arte on September 19. It will also air this month on the BBC, RTÉ, TV UNAM and Sistema Público.

The series features testimony from more than 60 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from both North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

Ten years in the making, it claims to reveal the human dimensions of an epic tragedy and brings the war and the chaotic epoch it encompassed vividly to life.

Written by Geoffrey C Ward and produced by Sarah Botstein plus Novick and Burns, it includes rarely seen, digitally remastered archival footage from sources around the globe.