It might be time for TLC to change its name. When The Learning Channel started out it was all about educational content. It was cool; a little nerdy, but still… Although it is still owned by the same parent company as Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and the Science Channel, it has now become part of the vast televised museum to the bizarre.
When I first clicked on the website today, I was treated to a short video clip from the show “My Crazy Obsession,” in which a middle aged British man and his wife have collected over 250 life sized sex dolls. The wife said, “Before the dolls we didn’t have anything to talk about.” Oh my… we might be losing our edge.
I think what bothers me is not that TLC is now peddling silly and shallow programming most of the time, but that this might be exactly what the viewing public has demanded. To a certain extent, TLC is just following the viewers. Viewers apparently didn’t really want to learn, so a network which was once all about educational programming has turned to “My Crazy Obsession” and “My strange Addiction,” (two of their most popular shows), in order to draw an audience.
The History Channel is doing the same thing. Every thirty minutes or so, the History Channel used to teach you something about a person, a subject, an era, and so on. Now it’s all guns and ammo, or Ice Road Truckers.
Does a network which bears the moniker The Learning Channel bear a responsibility to try and raise the bar, or at least keep it from descending into “18 Kids and Counting” or “Babies Behind Bars?” Sadly, I don’t think viewers are learning much of value on The Learning Channel.
So, here’s my question: Is that because we are losing it as a society and the new TLC is what we really want? Or is it because the execs at TLC got lazy and decided to appeal to our worst in order to gain market share?
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