“American Experience” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) offers the two-night documentary “Citizen Hearst,” a look at publisher and media mogul William Randolph Hearst and his times. Born in 1863, the third year of the Civil War, he would die in 1951, the second year of the Korean War, and Hearst would be at the center of American history for most of those years.

“Citizen” recalls his birth to the much-younger wife of a mining tycoon and senator from California, a product of the Gold Rush era of hard living, womanizing and profligate spending. Young William picked up his father’s penchant for excess.

He knew he wanted to be a newspaperman at an early age and dropped out of Harvard to buy his first paper — a rundown San Francisco daily he quickly turned around. When he entered the New York market, he would compete with Joseph Pulitzer and his World, a battle that would see both champion the immigrant underdog, as personified in “The Yellow Kid” comic strip, which ran at different times in both papers, and browbeat the McKinley administration into declaring war on Spain over Cuba, turning the United States into an imperial power.

This hardly would be the first time a battle for newspaper circulation (or TV ratings) would inspire warmongering with a flagrant disregard for facts. “Citizen” makes the case Hearst almost single-handedly invented modern media.

Tuesday’s edition will focus on Hearst’s role as a politically connected Hollywood producer with a newspaper empire to promote his movies and constellation of stars.

• Whether intentional or not, TCM’s movies offer commentary on the PBS schedule. Viewers of the “American Experience” profile of William Randolph Hearst might enjoy Orson Welles’ 1941 epic “Citizen Kane” (7 p.m., TV-PG), the film Hearst inspired and tried to suppress. Hearst is also a character, played by Charles Dance, in “Mank,” streaming on Netflix.

Viewers who have just completed Ken Burns’ four-part PBS profile of Muhammad Ali might enjoy director Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic “Malcolm X” (9:15 p.m., TCM, TV-14), starring Denzel Washington.

Tonight’s movie synergies don’t stop there. Viewers anticipating the “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark” (streaming on HBO Max and in theaters Oct. 1) can watch, or rather rewatch, “Goodfellas” (7 p.m., BBC America, TV-14), Martin Scorsese’s mobster masterpiece starring Ray Liotta, who also stars in “Newark.”

And sci-fi buffs can anticipate the Oct. 22 premiere of “Dune” by watching David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation (7:25 p.m., HBO Family). It’s curious to think how “edgy” it was to cast Sting in that space opera way back when. Sting now can be seen as one of Steve Martin and Martin Short’s bourgeois neighbors in the podcast comedy “Only Murders in the Building,” streaming on Hulu.

• A place for bucolic scenery, small-town Britain and an epidemic of homicides, “Midsomer Murders” streams its 22nd season exclusively on Acorn. A staple of British TV since 1998, older episodes of “Midsomer” can be streamed on various ad-supported platforms. Pluto TV has its own “Midsomer” channel. In addition to having cast every working character actor in the United Kingdom, older episodes offer a glance at phone, computer and forensics technology as it has evolved since the Y2K era.

TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

• A rival investigation emerges on “NCIS” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14).

• Competition for the three leads heats up on “The Big Leap” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14).

• One last heist on “NCIS: Hawai’i” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).

• All of the possible Joes mourn Dad, killed on 9/11, on “Ordinary Joe” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).