Is it just me, or has the History Channel gone full batshit woo-woo insane in the last few years?
Ancient Aliens, Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, MonsterQuest, BigFoot Evidence, The Nostradamus Effect, The Real Face of Jesus?, The Bible Code, UFO Hunters, and about a dozen different specials and miniseries on the Freemasons and anything having to do with da Vinci/Dan Brown/Holy Blood Holy Grail/Knights Templar/“Priory of Sion”.
Apparently the conspiracy theorists, cryptozoologists, pseudohistorians, Nostradamians, and UFO assnuts have taken over most programming decisions. They should just get it overwith and rename the channel, “Coast-to-Coast AM, on TV!”. And maybe grant executive producer positions to George Noory, Erich von Däniken, Graham Hancock, Dan Brown, and the Loch Ness Monster herself. I know there’s money to be made with programming on historical “mysteries,” but do they not care AT ALL about, you know…real history?
Was it always this bullshitty? Or am I remembering a halcyon past that never existed? I mean, I like some of their general-interest reality shows (especially Pawn Stars and American Pickers), but I swear I just can’t watch History anymore, because even their commercials for other shows have become too offensively stupid.
THIS is partly the reason our young people are so bloody ignorant. :mad:
I have a theory that the woo-woo “documentary” makers are willing to peddle their videos cheaper than someone who does a half decent bio of someone like Leonardo da Vinci, say. In the case of the True Believers, they might think that getting the word out about various religious notions is something that God wants them to do, so they’re willing to do it at cost.
And speaking of half decent bios, I remember when the Biography channel WASN’T just bios of various celebrities.
Agreeing with madmonk28! 2 Christmases ago my wife gave me a 2DVD pack of Victory at Sea, and I much prefer it to some of the HC stuff we’re subjected to.
I think I started a similar thread some months ago anout the HC’s fascination with the Apocalypse. Jesus! All right already, we get it, okay???
Every now and then something interesting will cross, but it’s usually a rerun, such as the one about (I think it’s called) The Dark.
I never knew that Greyfriars was such a horrible place! I always thought it was where that cute dog lived.
So every once in a while they get it right, but not much anymore.
It’s called Network Decay or Channel Drift and has affected many niche channels. They start off aiming at a specialist audience, then get hungry for ratings and end up abandoning that audience.
Sad to say, this crap sells (or draws eyeballs). Some variations of the Hitler Channel such as Military History or International History are still decent.
Because a large percentage of people out there are idiots and at least kind-of believe this stuff. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually believe in ghosts, but once my aunt Wanda had something kinda fishy happen to her, and, well, it could have been!
On occasion the History Channel will still produce/show a program that is actual history and is actually pretty good. A few years back they had a program about pirates that had pretty good production values combined with some solid research. (I didn’t actually watch the whole thing as I had already read the same source material used to put together the show and I grew bored after 30 minutes.) Fairly recently (within the last 2 years?), they had a short series about U.S. history starting from colonial days up to today and it was fantastic. It certainly didn’t cover everything but it did a great job covering the broad American events while at the same time making it easy for the audience to relate. It didn’t hurt that it has fantastic production values though I did find it odd that celebrities were talking about American history (not narrating) as if they were experts.
Ah, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we had another “WTF happened to the History Channel” thread. Just last night as I was looking through my DirecTV guide, I noticed they had a full night of Bigfoot Evidence and MonsterQuest. People used to complain when it was the Hitler Channel, but that was at least, you know, real history.
Thankfully, young people don’t watch the History Channel.
The name is “History” channel but it shouldn’t take too many visits there to realize it’s the “cheaply made documentary” channel. The word “history” is just bait to draw in the unwary. Let it go. Maybe if nobody watches it it will die.
I suspect it is simply cost-benefit. Those crappy “documentaries” are cheap to make (some taking heads and some ‘re-enactment’ footage) and there is a large audience for it.
Real history documentaries are going to be more expensive. Imagine the cost of ‘re-enactment’ footage for (say) the Battle of Waterloo, vs. that for some blurry ghosts in a haunted house.
OTOH, there are documentaries with existing film footage. That’s one reason for so much WW2 stuff.
Perhaps it should be called “Glenn Beck’s History Channel”. They do the same sort of “Could the answer be that aliens did it?” bullshit that he does, hinting darkly at conspiracies and other nonsense that the ignorant buy into.
There is a story that a long time ago the networks did research to find out what people wanted to see on TV. The results were that people wanted to see high brow stuff like plays, classical music, etc. They put that on and the ratings were bad so they stopped showing that stuff . Either the research was flawed or people lied about what they liked.
History Channel still has some decent stuff. I enjoy Modern Marvels, and the Universe. Generally anything that deals with contemporary things/events and avoids being speculative is good.
One other problem History Channel has is they really cash in on local movies. When the Da Vinci Code was all the rage, History Channel became the ‘Da Vinci Channel’. When 300 came out, all the programs were about Spartans, etc.
There ya go. They need to go the same way as TLC or MTV and just officially rename themselves “HC”. Then we can say “Did you know that HC used to mean History Channel so many years ago?”