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Why did documentary channels become so terrible?
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I enjoy documentaries, but I never watch the 'documentary' channels on Sky. Almost every programme is sensationalist / celebrity / reality padded out rubbish.
How did we get here? Were these channels doomed with the arrival of digital and a separate documentary section that few bother/remember to look at?
Perhaps this is related to Americans excelling at sophisticated drama and comedy, but struggling to make good docs.
How did we get here? Were these channels doomed with the arrival of digital and a separate documentary section that few bother/remember to look at?
Perhaps this is related to Americans excelling at sophisticated drama and comedy, but struggling to make good docs.
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How did we get here? Several causes I think. Too many channels with 24 hours a day to fill with too little original material to fill the time doesn't help. Ultimately it is probably about money; the type of programming being shown is no doubt cheaper than "proper" documentary programming.
I agree that Discovery and Nat Geo have become pretty poor with what they output now, its nothing of what the channels were there to do and claimed top spot in doing for years!
Yes, quantity over quality is a big problem. Much cheaper to produce 200 eps of a bland series than a decent one off.
I yearn for a simpler time - like that watercolour paintings dude with the big afro
Brace yourself - it was a perm! ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3767827/The-Joy-Painting-host-Bob-Ross-famed-curly-locks-PERM-hated-s-revealed.html ) . He hated it, but couldn't have it cut as it was the logo of his company
The Joy of Painting Series 24 just finished on PBS watch out for series 25.
Agree generally docs quality has reduced to a sad level of quality.
Without having loads of airtime to fill, organisations like History and Discovery (both will have dropped 'channel' from their name because effectively there will be no such thing) will be able to make a much smaller amount of better, on demand, content.
Around the time of the launch of Sky Digital the lineup on the documentary channels they had then and were launching new digital offshoots of were far more satisfying.
You had The Biography Channel, the lives of famous movie stars, politicians, pop stars, controversial people etc, now gone. Discovery had the most superior lineup about this time, as it has Discovery Civilisation, Discovery-Science & Technology, Discovery Travel & Adventure as offshoot channels, now it sort of remains as Discovery History & Discovery Science which are much better to watch than the main Discovery Channel the output on which I find very boring E! Entertainment is the closest we get now to The Biography Channel and that's a bit sad!
The History Channel, a lot of it was about World War II all the time but at least it was history to learn about and they covered quite a lot more too, such as the Korean War, until a year or so ago you still had The Military History Channel which would cover a lot of that but then it got switched to H2 and although that seemed as if it might show some more actual history again, a lot of "Ancient Aliens" etc has been shoved on there just the same!
National Geographic, remains better but they have aped the trend as well and gone with a lot of sensational stuff like endlessly showing "Air Crash Investigation" and stuff about drug busts etc, "Banged Up Abroad" is a great series but should also show fascinating stuff about the world, world geography as well! They even make some of the lifestyle sort of stuff that History is now completely composed of, Discovery Channel is also very boring in this way too, showing magaziney, reality style programming instead of stuff that actually fascinates.
CI & Discovery ID, let's study what makes evil people tick, and why they do the things that they do, how many ways can a family go wrong and who'll get murdered?
A fascinating study of criminology or just titilating people who get to basically watch murder porn? The clue is they are pretty much just focused on murder and not all sorts of other interesting crime as well. This genre of factual channel didn't exist back in 2000. A whole channel genre has been made out of the gory details of peoples very unfortunate lives, this would have started out being treated very sensitively and with a lot of respect as a one off documentary would be made about say the events that happened at Dunblane or Lockerbie, now it's more or less descended to become cheap entertainment that fills airtime 24 hours a day. How good are all these programmes for the human soul, the same channel CI will show "Britain's Darkest Taboos'" in the same schedule as "1000 Ways To Die" which is a show that laughs at and mocks death and the people who have unfortunately died, making them the subject of cheap humour because the way they died is considered "their own fault", ie Darwin Awards!
PBS America, pretty good channel, lots of good documentaries, you don't need your Sky viewing card, it's free to air, but it's the much better documentary channel. Yesterday also FTA, Eden not, but it has good programmes, because guess what they are made by the BBC and have quite a bit more production to them than cheap lifestyle reality crap!
Animal Planet, all going to be great attenborough style content, not exactly, just cheap programming! Nat Geo Wild better in this department I think.
Let's have stuff that fascinates, doesn't have to be all highbrow and serious, just very interesting, space could be a whole channel if bloody murder is. Discovery Space, Nat Geo Space, I would watch that all day! Astronomy is very popular.
I think that you still need the more traditional channels for documentaries - Joanna Lumleys Japan on ITV being a good example.