I've subscribed to both Now Tv and BTTV and been very disappointed with the documentary offerings. History in particular should be done under trades description legislation!
It's surprising - Sky have made an effort with Sky Arts to pitch themselves in the quality end of the market. It's sad that the documentary channels are general reality TV channels instead. There's better stuff for free on YouTube.
Sky Arts is politically motivated though. It's them shouting 'We do PSB so who needs the BBC'. Already though now that they have grained some traction with that tactic they have scaled Sky Arts down by moving from 2 to 1 channel. If the Licence fee was scrapped how long would Sky Art's (and Sky News which is by all accounts a channel that losses them significant amounts) actually last?
Sky Arts is politically motivated though. It's them shouting 'We do PSB so who needs the BBC'.
No it is not. It is commercially motivated.
It is aimed at attracting high end subscribers who have no interest in sport or general entertainment, so would otherwise have not subscribe to Sky.
Although they closed a linear channel, this was offset by a much expanded on demand service and increasing the channel's programming budget.
So unless scaling down means more original content as well and greater access to repeats then I am not sure fewer scheduled repeats should be all that is looked at.
The attitude on these channels is that nobody would be entertained by a good documentary, but I'm not entertained by all the rest of the crap they show and I'm only entertained when they actually do show a documentary.
History
All reality, magazine, lifestyle or whatever you call that type of programming that needless to say is not History, if only the programmes they show now could become history themselves, whatever type of TV it actually is and who could give a monkeys, it could definitely be described by the genre of being totally crap.
H2 - created as a sort of relegation zone for the remaining history shows, it now acts mostly as a buffer for showing Ancient Aliens, about the only decent show left is "The Universe". Great that this is the channel that has no +1, no HD and is not shown on Sky Go, because this is the channel you need to go to to see occasional history, shown more occasionally than even Channel 4 used to have shows with Tony Robinson & David Starkey and they aren't even supposed to be a dedicated history channel!
National Geographic - doesn't live up to its name much either, but all could be forgiven when you watch some of the decent factual content on there such as "Air Crash Investigation", shame they too are starting to do the Discovery, History watch a bunch of guys do some occupation with their lives whilst standing around a camera acting cool multiple spin off shows itself now too! I enjoyed "Banged Up Abroad" with its sensational stories of how peoples lives got ruined trying to stuff drugs up their crack whilst taking a leisurely stroll through an airport, I mean you couldn't say a show ultimately about airports and sometimes 10 year flight delays wasn't geographical in nature.
Discovery - It's annoying how pants the main Discovery channel has always been when you can see they know how to program decent documentaries occasionally when you look at Discovery History & Science, but of course they are not considered important enough to be given HD or get carried on Sky Go even though they are the channels you really need to watch, they are given +1's however. If you like watching a bunch of blokes repairing an old bike rather than being fascinated with cultures, big historical events or the scale of our universe than by all means turn to the main boring Discovery channel, you can even see old bike parts in 1080i, no such luxury for the space stuff though which would really benefit from it!
And then two channels devoted to salacious, gory and voyeuristic stories about people who have been murdered, don't worry this is not a guilty pleasure at all you are just watching a serious study of crime and the depraved human mind. The channel might be called Crime but it's only interested in just one of those, murder! I've not even seen a documentary on there for something else other than bloody murder for a change, like the Great Train Robbery or the Lehman Brothers fraud, they did show Saints & Scroungers once though! I wouldn't mind this channel if only we also had a great range of other documentaries and documentary channels such as one wholly dedicated to Space which is a channel I would always be on, but the attitude is to go for the ratings with a whole channel dedicated to blood thirsty anecdotes. I think you could get the idea from the first serial killer what it is they do, they murder people and try to get away with it because they enjoy it, and someone else lost their temper and is now spending 20 years in sing sing as a result, yes we get it now, it's not rocket science (unlike space exploration which IS rocket science!).
The attitude on these channels is that nobody would be entertained by a good documentary, but I'm not entertained by all the rest of the crap they show and I'm only entertained when they actually do show a documentary
You will find its less their attitude that nobody will be entertained by a good documentary but more the fact that very few people in comparison are compared to the output they do show. There is a reason after all why the content is shifting from more serious factual to what it is now
Its back to the quantity over quality -too much quantity not enough quality
Sat tv have had it so easy for such a long time in terms of having no competition
Over the next 10 years as more people get to access to fibre optic broadband the viewers will desert the sat platform in droves
I think online instant access to progs of the individuals choice rather than being forced fed a diet of daily crap
The big players will be Amazon Apple Youtube Netflix to name but a few......
Comments
Sky Arts is politically motivated though. It's them shouting 'We do PSB so who needs the BBC'. Already though now that they have grained some traction with that tactic they have scaled Sky Arts down by moving from 2 to 1 channel. If the Licence fee was scrapped how long would Sky Art's (and Sky News which is by all accounts a channel that losses them significant amounts) actually last?
No it is not. It is commercially motivated.
It is aimed at attracting high end subscribers who have no interest in sport or general entertainment, so would otherwise have not subscribe to Sky.
Although they closed a linear channel, this was offset by a much expanded on demand service and increasing the channel's programming budget.
So unless scaling down means more original content as well and greater access to repeats then I am not sure fewer scheduled repeats should be all that is looked at.
History
All reality, magazine, lifestyle or whatever you call that type of programming that needless to say is not History, if only the programmes they show now could become history themselves, whatever type of TV it actually is and who could give a monkeys, it could definitely be described by the genre of being totally crap.
H2 - created as a sort of relegation zone for the remaining history shows, it now acts mostly as a buffer for showing Ancient Aliens, about the only decent show left is "The Universe". Great that this is the channel that has no +1, no HD and is not shown on Sky Go, because this is the channel you need to go to to see occasional history, shown more occasionally than even Channel 4 used to have shows with Tony Robinson & David Starkey and they aren't even supposed to be a dedicated history channel!
National Geographic - doesn't live up to its name much either, but all could be forgiven when you watch some of the decent factual content on there such as "Air Crash Investigation", shame they too are starting to do the Discovery, History watch a bunch of guys do some occupation with their lives whilst standing around a camera acting cool multiple spin off shows itself now too! I enjoyed "Banged Up Abroad" with its sensational stories of how peoples lives got ruined trying to stuff drugs up their crack whilst taking a leisurely stroll through an airport, I mean you couldn't say a show ultimately about airports and sometimes 10 year flight delays wasn't geographical in nature.
Discovery - It's annoying how pants the main Discovery channel has always been when you can see they know how to program decent documentaries occasionally when you look at Discovery History & Science, but of course they are not considered important enough to be given HD or get carried on Sky Go even though they are the channels you really need to watch, they are given +1's however. If you like watching a bunch of blokes repairing an old bike rather than being fascinated with cultures, big historical events or the scale of our universe than by all means turn to the main boring Discovery channel, you can even see old bike parts in 1080i, no such luxury for the space stuff though which would really benefit from it!
And then two channels devoted to salacious, gory and voyeuristic stories about people who have been murdered, don't worry this is not a guilty pleasure at all you are just watching a serious study of crime and the depraved human mind. The channel might be called Crime but it's only interested in just one of those, murder! I've not even seen a documentary on there for something else other than bloody murder for a change, like the Great Train Robbery or the Lehman Brothers fraud, they did show Saints & Scroungers once though! I wouldn't mind this channel if only we also had a great range of other documentaries and documentary channels such as one wholly dedicated to Space which is a channel I would always be on, but the attitude is to go for the ratings with a whole channel dedicated to blood thirsty anecdotes. I think you could get the idea from the first serial killer what it is they do, they murder people and try to get away with it because they enjoy it, and someone else lost their temper and is now spending 20 years in sing sing as a result, yes we get it now, it's not rocket science (unlike space exploration which IS rocket science!).
You will find its less their attitude that nobody will be entertained by a good documentary but more the fact that very few people in comparison are compared to the output they do show. There is a reason after all why the content is shifting from more serious factual to what it is now
Sat tv have had it so easy for such a long time in terms of having no competition
Over the next 10 years as more people get to access to fibre optic broadband the viewers will desert the sat platform in droves
I think online instant access to progs of the individuals choice rather than being forced fed a diet of daily crap
The big players will be Amazon Apple Youtube Netflix to name but a few......