The Heartbeat of America

FRONTLINE opens its twelfth season with the story of General Motors–the world’s largest industrial company and the symbol of corporate America’s once golden age of optimism. A co-production with the Center for Investigative Reporting, the program examines how GM went from being the undisputed number-one car company to suffering a $23.5 billion loss last year–the biggest U.S. corporate loss on record. Can GM halt its decline? What went wrong? FRONTLINE looks for answers to those questions in this saga of a once mighty company that is struggling to regain its past glory. At stake are the livelihoods of GM’s 736,000 workers worldwide and millions more who produce the steel, glass, rubber, and plastic that go into GM cars and trucks. [90 minutes]