What fascinates so many of us about John F. Kennedy? What grips those of us not yet born when he died? Those of us looking at him only through the lens of history, or the History Channel? Perhaps it's the clear charisma, charm, cheekiness and conviction of the man who became America's most-popular modern president, a martyred hero, then an acronym. Perhaps it's his soap-opera life. The perfectly coiffed Mrs Kennedy. The philandering. The affair with Marilyn Monroe. The so-called Kennedy curse. Perhaps it's his awful - and awfully public - end, shot by a sniper as his open-top limousine crawled through Dallas. Probably it's all of the above.
Certainly, few events have been more scrutinised, documented and fictionalised - and not just because conspiracy theorists think Lee Harvey Oswald was a scapegoat. Even without that, the story fascinates us. And TV networks know it.
Now that the 50th anniversary of JFK's death is upon us, good luck avoiding the tsunami of shows coming to the small screen. And not just on the anniversary, Friday. Over the next eight days, Sky alone is screening 15 JFK programmes over five channels, from BBC Knowledge "Uncovered" special JFK's Women: Scandals Revealed (Sunday week, 8.30pm) to the History Channel's programme JFK Assassination: The Definitive Guide (Saturday, 8.30pm), about who Americans think did it.
The History Channel may win on sheer numbers (six shows in nine days), but National Geographic Channel (NGC) has got JFK into three consecutive 7.30pm timeslots.
