Never before explored regions of our world and never before seen animal behaviors are featured in High-Definition on a new series on the Discovery Channel.

Discovery Communications and The Nature Conservancy have come together to present PLANET EARTH, an 11 part series that will premiere Sunday, March 25 in conjunction with a media campaign to raise awareness about environmental conservation.

But this partnership includes more than just an HD nature show. The companies are utilizing online, interactive media to actively engage viewers in the conservation message. During the broadcast you'll be able to go The Discovery Channel's website to chat with other viewers, answer trivia questions about the show and ask questions to a lead scientist with The Nature Conservancy. A live chat with the production team is planned for the following day (March 26) so viewers can get an exclusive on what went on behind the scenes. Of course all of that is in addition to the cross promotional efforts that will blanket both The Discovery Channel and The Nature Conservancy sites with more in-depth information, related content and educational activities.

The alignment of these two organizations makes sense and is another step forward in green programming. It will be interesting to see how the interactive element of this campaign turns out. The Discovery Channel is one of the leaders in this realm and has trained its viewers to go online for more, but we'll have to wait a few weeks to see if those who tune into PLANET EARTH on TV will also turn on their computers at the same time.

Like some of Discovery's programming this idea enters some uncharted waters. I imagine they'll be pushing the simultaneous web features during the telecast through annoying animated graphics at the bottom of the screen, which could get in the way of the majestic HD ecological scenery. Or it could be a successful way to get people online and interacting with other viewers to really raise awareness for conservation efforts. I'm not sure if TV viewers are at that point just yet, but I'm sure at the very least it will generate a fair amount of web traffic after the show.

Via PR Web