I love the Ken Burns documentaries. I find that I don't schedule them on the DVR, but anytime I stumble across one on PBS -- like the recent one on national parks -- I wind up spending the afternoon watching the back to back hours.

Last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the clever guys over there presented one of the funniest bits yet on the Jay Leno versus Conan O'Brien saga at NBC. Imagine, if you will, how Kevin Burns might document the conflagration...

I told you not long ago that Wordplay, the documentary about New York Times Crossword editor Will Shortz and his annual crossword competition would air as part of the PBS series Independent Lens on October 16. It turns out it's also the very first documentary of the series' sixth season.

Other documentaries will include An Unreasonable Man, the popular 2006 documentary about presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader; Banished, which tells the story of how some small towns expelled their black communities; King Corn, about two college students who grow their own food to challenge big agri-business; Miss Navajo, which centers on a unique Native American beauty pageant; Iron Ladies of Liberia focuses on the first head of state in Africa; Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita, about a neurologist trying to find a cure for his paralyzed daughter; and Please Vote for Me, a documentary from China about three eight year old students running for "class monitor."

VH1 has picked up five documentaries for its Rock Doc series, and they're pretty darn interesting. Alright, four of the five of them sound interesting. The fifth is a Courtney Love documentary, which maybe only qualifies as interesting in that "can't tear my eyes from the car wreck" kinda way.

The series aims to bring "untold stories" with an "unconventional narrative approach" to the screen. Three of the five films are acquisitions, which means that documentary filmmakers may have a new avenue for hawking their wares. The series starts up December 16th and continues into 2007.

The five documentaries include:

As an addendum to what Rich reported earlier today, Broadcasting & Cable says something at the end of this piece that I thought was rather odd: NBC Universal might make MSNBC an all taped show/magazine format, and move Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews - the only two people who really have any buzz on the network - over to CNBC.

Hmmm...

Actually, at first I thought this was silly, but if you think about it, it makes sense. MSNBC is going more and more towards the documentaries and taped shows, so moving a lot of the news programs over to CNBC would be a good move. It could build up CNBC to what it once was, make their schedule stronger, and fit in better.

[via Romenesko]