This week on the channel +3.1M views this week

FRONTLINE opens its 2002 accounting archive to a new audience

"Bigger Than Enron" arrives on YouTube for the first time, alongside shorter reports on Haiti and Israel's election.

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FRONTLINE PBS | Official Story of October 30, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

Inside Major Corporate Accounting Scandals | Bigger Than Enron (full documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS)

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5:05The film examines how executive stock options created incentives to inflate share prices.
12:53Accounting standard-setters retreat from stronger stock-option expense rules under congressional pressure.
28:22The investigation turns to accounting restatements and the Waste Management scandal.
35:03Consulting work creates conflicts with accounting firms' responsibility to scrutinize their clients' books.
45:34The film covers Andersen's obstruction conviction, which FRONTLINE's accompanying update notes was overturned in 2005.

FRONTLINE's archive release became its most watched new upload of the week. "Inside Major Corporate Accounting Scandals | Bigger Than Enron (full documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS)" has drawn roughly 261,000 views, bringing Hedrick Smith's 2002 investigation into a week otherwise focused on Haiti and Israel.

The documentary's most revealing stretch comes before its detailed return to Enron. It follows the effort to make companies account for executive stock options as an expense, and the political pressure that forced accounting standard-setters to retreat. Later, it examines the conflicts created when accounting firms sell consulting services to the same companies whose books they audit. This is an archival broadcast, not a new investigation; FRONTLINE's accompanying update notes that the Supreme Court overturned Arthur Andersen's obstruction conviction in 2005.

The week's other two uploads ask how Haiti's gangs acquired their power and what was at stake in Israel's election. The longer "Haiti Deportation Crisis," released the previous week, remains among the channel's busiest documentaries, alongside "Scammed," its investigation with The Associated Press into the global online fraud industry. The accounting film currently draws considerably more daily views than either.

Across the channel, subscribers grew by about 40,000 over seven days, even as its current daily viewing pace sits well below its usual level. Among nearby documentary and journalism channels, Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan is having a busier-than-usual day, while Real Stories is quieter. FRONTLINE's own week belongs chiefly to a film made long before streaming became part of its distribution: a newly accessible piece of its reporting archive.

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