Two years ago, I reached out to the CEO of Documentary Channel about the need for a blog on the channel’s website and offering my services to manage said blog. He was interested, and in September 2011 the Doc Blog was launched. We saw it as a way to engage viewers with content about Documentary Channel’s programming while also supplementing that programming with exclusive filmmaker interviews and coverage of the world of documentary film beyond the works shown on the channel.
At first, the blog was housed slightly offsite and hosted by Tumblr (visit the former incarnation here). Late last year it took the onsite form you see here. The whole time, posting nearly every day for the past 23 months, it has been a great joy to share my subjective thoughts as well as information I found necessary for any doc fan. Hopefully it has been a joy to read, too.
Beginning tomorrow, Documentary Channel will be no more. The new owners, Participant Media, are introducing their new channel, Pivot, in its place. Pivot sounds exciting, and while it won’t be a home solely for nonfiction films, you’ll still be able to regularly find documentaries there. Some of the Doc Channel staples I see dotting the Pivot schedule just over the next week or so include ReGeneration (which is also on tonight), Cafeteria Man, 8: The Mormon Proposition, Save the Farm, Bag It, Warrior Champions, Water Wars, Prosecutor, The War on Kids and American Teacher.
Additionally, there will be new docs added by Pivot, such as Terms and Conditions May Apply, A Place at the Table, State 194, We Are Legion and 99% — The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film. Pivot also has new documentary and reality series, including a travel talk show called Raising McCain hosted by Meghan McCain, and a nightly talk show called Take Part Live. Many doc fans should be familiar with Take Part as the social action division of Participant Media, which has run campaigns associated with films like Food, Inc. and An Inconvenient Truth.
So, definitely continue to tune in to the channel you normally found Documentary Channel on. As for this website, you’ll no longer be able to find my blogging about documentaries here. For my coverage of nonfiction cinema, you can find me occasionally writing reviews at Film School Rejects and feature interview profiles at RogerEbert.com in addition to my broader writing on movies at Movies.com, Moviefone and other outlets. And you can keep following me on Twitter @thefilmcynic.
Thank you for watching Documentary Channel, and thank you for reading the Documentary Channel Blog.
