I am deeply saddened about the state of educational historical television in the USA.

[InfernalMachine]

I currently live in America, but half of my family live in England. Every so often (read: whenever I can afford it) I go over and visit my relatives in England. About a month ago I did that very thing. While I was there I decided to turn on the TV, because I had nothing better to do. I was greeted by an amazing BBC documentary about the Viking Invasion of England, and Wessex's rise to power under Alfred the Great. I was glued to my seat. It had been some time since I had seen any such programming of the sort. While the documentary was amazing, it made me depressed in a way, as television in the USA would never show such a thing any more. History channel no longer shows anything related to historical documentaries, and similar channels do not either. It has devolved into reality TV and shows for people who do not want to learn anything. I am deeply saddened that I cannot watch anything like this without having to buy tons of DVD's, many of which do not support my region's DVD player. I am sorry if I am ranting, but I just had to get it out to make myself feel better about it. I just really miss the BBC and it's wonderful documentaries.

 

[unmerged(62524)]

Apparently, the "Ancient Aliens" Channel does not impress you...

 

[Yakman]

Let's see what's on the History Channel today...

8 straight hours of Pawn Stars

followed by

8 straight hours of Houdini, their new miniseries with Adrien Brody

and on History2

actual history & geology. surprising.

WHERE'S MY ANCIENT ALIENS?!!?! OR MY ALIENS VERSUS NAZIS!?!?!? WHAT A JOKE!!!

 

[gagenater]

I currently live in America, but half of my family live in England. Every so often (read: whenever I can afford it) I go over and visit my relatives in England. About a month ago I did that very thing. While I was there I decided to turn on the TV, because I had nothing better to do. I was greeted by an amazing BBC documentary about the Viking Invasion of England, and Wessex's rise to power under Alfred the Great. I was glued to my seat. It had been some time since I had seen any such programming of the sort. While the documentary was amazing, it made me depressed in a way, as television in the USA would never show such a thing any more. History channel no longer shows anything related to historical documentaries, and similar channels do not either. It has devolved into reality TV and shows for people who do not want to learn anything. I am deeply saddened that I cannot watch anything like this without having to buy tons of DVD's, many of which do not support my region's DVD player. I am sorry if I am ranting, but I just had to get it out to make myself feel better about it. I just really miss the BBC and it's wonderful documentaries.

Of course this is all paid for by tax money, so it's not surprising that 'public education' is in fact what it's used for. PBS has had a number of very good historical documetaries over the years as well. They are there - just not as obvious as those the BBC makes, because it's not as well funded. The BBC DOES release darn near everything for sale in North American region formats as well.

 

[cacra]

WHERE'S MY ANCIENT ALIENS?!!?! OR MY ALIENS VERSUS NAZIS!?!?!? WHAT A JOKE!!!

I thought you were joking, but the History channel has actually made that...

Also, have you ever tried youtube.com? it has most BBC documentaries.

 

[plasticpanzers]

History programs in the US have fallen on hard times and ninnies at the stations that could produce them but do not. Glitz and fear and reality shows are where the money is now. Sadly this means shows like Victory at Sea and The Valiant Years are things you have to buy to enjoy but not expect them on TV anymore tho we rarely do get a winner like WW2 in HD a couple years back. Again tho to see it again you must buy it because they won't run shows in sequence anymore. WW2 in Color on "American Heroes Channel" will show a 1944 then a 1939 episode. Idiots.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

Of course this is all paid for by tax money, so it's not surprising that 'public education' is in fact what it's used for.

The BBC isn't funded by taxes. Its funded by television license fees which you don't have to pay if you don't own a television and is therefore sort of voluntary. It isn't a state owned business like several other British institutions that are funded by taxes.

 

[gagenater]

The BBC isn't funded by taxes. Its funded by television license fees which you don't have to pay if you don't own a television and is therefore sort of voluntary. It isn't a state owned business like several other British institutions that are funded by taxes.

And if you do own a television? Is it still optional? Just because a tax or fee isn't universally applied to the entire population as individuals doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Yakman]

and today on history channel it is 7 hours of 'America's Book of Secrets' followed by 13 hours of Pawn Stars.

and on History 2:

3 hours of "The Nostradamus Effect"
2 hours of the 2 hour long "Caligula: 1400 days of Terror"

repeat.

 

[Amallric]

And if you do own a television? Is it still optional? Just because a tax or fee isn't universally applied to the entire population as individuals doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

If you do own a television you have to pay it, but you can see it as a service fee. You pay because you benefit from the service. And the money is used to run the service. A tax is something you pay and the money goes to the general budget of the country so that you cannot know what your particular tax money is going to be spent for.

 

[gagenater]

If you do own a television you have to pay it, but you can see it as a service fee. You pay because you benefit from the service. And the money is used to run the service. A tax is something you pay and the money goes to the general budget of the country so that you cannot know what your particular tax money is going to be spent for.

No - it's a tax with an earmark. LOTS of taxes have that. For example taxes on fuel which are collected in the US are used for road maintenance. Medicare and Social security taxes are seperated at the point of collection and used for those particular programs. Certain taxes on your telephone service are used to provide reduced price (or free) service for the poor. Taxes on hotel rooms in most cities and areas are earmarked for special municipal projects. Taxes for schools are collected seperately from other taxes - and so forth and so on.

 

[Amallric]

All right, then you in the US have a different definition of a tax.

 

[DarthJF]

In Finland we actually switched to a special tax for our own public broadcast company, so now you have to pay for it even if you don't have a tv.

 

[Kovax]

You're not counting all of those "historical" programs like "Jack the Ripper - the Overtold Story", "Shark Attacks in America", or "The OTHER 100 Secrets Behind the Pyramids", between the episodes of Pawn Stars, ancient aliens, and other stuff between the fundraiser telethons.

Democracy depends on an educated public, so the less you educate the public, the less they get in the way of the "business as usual" political process.

 

[magritte2]

You're not counting all of those "historical" programs like "Jack the Ripper - the Overtold Story", "Shark Attacks in America", or "The OTHER 100 Secrets Behind the Pyramids", between the episodes of Pawn Stars, ancient aliens, and other stuff between the fundraiser telethons.

Democracy depends on an educated public, so the less you educate the public, the less they get in the way of the "business as usual" political process.

Don't forget there's also the Learning Channel to educate the masses. You can learn all about Honey Boo Boo and toddler beauty contests from it.

 

[Yakman]

and in a massive flip from yesterday

on history we have THE UNIVERSE running until 7pm, followed by gobs and gobs of AMERICAN PICKERS

while on history 2 we have MONSTERQUEST running until 10 am, followed by ANCIENT ALIENS until 10pm, when IN SEARCH OF ALIENS picks up.

 

[krieger11b]

That about fits it best. Whenever they can they love to throw in incredibly unlikely ways humanity will die and over emphasis them like they are likely to happen.

My two favorites are from their show "The Universe." The first is a black hole getting close enough to swallow the Earth, damned unlikely given how much things are spaced out in space, it's called space for a reason. The other was there is this huge star that will go super nova in the next million years and if one of it's poles is facing the Earth it will destroy the entire ozone layer and sterilize the planet, a million mile wide beam of gamma rays hitting the Earth from thousands of light years away would be almost impossible, especially since the relation to the Solar system and that star will change quite a bit in a million years.

 

[George Parr]

What gets on my nerves are documentaries which seems to be all fluff. You have 60 minutes of air time, about 20 of those get wasted on constant commercial breaks, with another 20 minutes being spend on repeating everything you said a dozen times so even the biggest idiot can remember what you were talking about prior to the last commercial break. This gets even more annyong when you are living in a country where they do less but longer commercial breaks, thus getting many of the repeats right after it was said the first time.

Of the remaining 20 minutes, at least half gets used for useless animations that get repeated multiple times for no good reason at all, or reanactment by low-skill "actors" which add absolutely nothing to the content. This means you just spent an hour watching something that could have been shown in about 10 minutes. Which is a shame, because some of the topics are actually interesting and you would have zero problem filling an entire hour with valuable information.

 

[Kovax]

There's the problem, "valuable information". If you're trying to give "valuable" information away, then either it's not valuable, or the recipients must also be valuable to you. Since the programs are partially funded by tax dollars, one might THINK that the taxpayers would be of some value to the producers, but apparently that's not the case, since the broadcasting stations which the programs are produced for are also partially or mainly funded by commercial advertisements. In selling ad space, it's imperative that the regular content doesn't "outshine" the ads, so the regular content needs to be heavily watered down to make car insurance and pharmaceutical ads and their ilk somehow seem appealing and interesting. Of course, those "ancient aliens" programs are there to make the ad content seem almost credible by comparison.

 

[Nick Giordano]

I lost all respect on that channel when they aired their "all of human history in 2 hours" special. I was hoping it would be something decent, with a full two hours from cavemen, Babylonia to the 21st century.

At the 60 minute mark they finally got to human beings. The first hour was devoted to the creation of the earth....


I'm under the assumption history is for human achievement. If I wanted to see how the earth was made I'll go to the SCIENCE channel.


It was the last straw as far as I'm concerned.