Wednesday 5 September 2012

History Channel: Where's the history?

Time for a bit of a rant!

I have been a regular viewer of the History Channel (in the UK) for a good few years, but just recently I have noticed I haven't been watching it much recently. I finally realised when I picked up a TV guide last night and had a quick scan of the listings...

2012-09-04 18.29.45

Have a quick scan through that and tell me just how many shows actually have anything to do with history? Directly, I can only see one (The Last Days of World War Two at 1pm. I suppose you could class American Pickers (a US version of Cash In The Attic I think) as related to history in some vague way, but everything else is a "fly on the wall" documentary (in other words cheap TV). On top of that, there are only about five distinct shows on, most of the day is taken up with different versions of the same shows. Really has the History Channel got nothing better to do than run the same thing over and over again...

A quick scan through the Discovery History lineup (directly below the HC listing on the same page) shows an interesting mix of historical documentaries.

I get pretty disappointed when Syfy resorts to showing pseudo-documentaries about UFOs and Crypto-zoology (SyFyUK at least doesn't have the wrestling that I have heard the US version does).  At least you can have a laugh at the documentaries on SyFy! I wish they would stop showing cheap horror movies too, it is supposed to be a sci-fi channel not the Horror Channel.

Come on History Channel get your act together and start showing history based programming instead of this cheap fly on the wall rubbish!

3 comments:

  1. Oh it is just as bad in the US. I hate that they barely ever show any thing to do with history any more. And lots of there new shows are short on history and just show actors going at each other with cheap CGI back grounds.. I used to turn the old history channel on first thing in the morning ever day wen I was a kid. Not any more.

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  2. I don't have history channel but the history program on the regular discovery channel are also declining and lots of the same ones!

    They even took BBC1 and 2 from the cable, one of my favorite channels, this all to force us to buy digital tv! For your information I'm in Belgium!

    Cheers!

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  3. After reading it I begin to wonder if history from History Channel didn't go where music from MTV went ^^

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