Documentary channels before reality tv

vafankillar

So sky history was added to nowtv yesterday and predictably its mostly reality tv crap.

I get that it's where the money is at and its cheap to produce but one thing I dont really understand is why cant they at least upload the back catalogue of older documentaries that where actually history based.

people are paying for it, and they cant really be bought elsewhere so It wouldnt affect sales like streaming would for say peaky blinders.

Same with discovery and all the other documentary channels. Am I missing something obvious here or would they think it's just not worth the effort?

Mantis Toboggan

Badly managed really and all chasing the easy dollar. If you want good documentaries Netflix is your best bet. Some fantastic stuff on their and no pesky ads to be dealing with.

Finished the devil next door last night about Ivan the terrible. Thought it was very good, didn't know much about it previously, very harrowing viewing though.

mossie

Yeah, calling it Sky History is something of a misnomer. It stopped being a history channel long before it became Sky History so a total rebrand to something like Sky Reality world have been more accurate.

lertsnim

I remember fondly the days when the documentary channels were one of the main reasons to get Sky. Now they're a reason to get rid of Sky.

S.M.B.

That old programming would have been licenced for use on traditional TV over the years. It's not as simple as saying, now in the age of streaming why isn't everything that was ever on The History Channel available on demand on this new Sky History channel. You could apply the same rationale to everything that ever found it's way onto a Sky TV channel over the past 20 years. Why isn't it all available for us to view on demand?

Interestingly I had not heard of these new Sky History, Sky Nature and Sky Documentaries channels before and the latter actually looks decent. Now I need a way to try surface this content to my attention as I find it really difficult to sift through and keep an eye on new additions to streaming platforms.

Mick McGraw

PBS channel and Smithsonian channel have some good documentaries on it.

neris

Mick McGraw wrote: »

PBS channel and Smithsonian channel have some good documentaries on it.

Both have some great stuff on youtube and some other great documentaries on there aswell.

Ipso

Ah, yes the "History" Channel. I loved this quote from them when they were defending a documentary on Amelia Earhart.

"HISTORY has a team of investigators exploring the latest developments about Amelia Earhart, and we will be transparent in our findings," the channel said in a statement last week. "Ultimately, historical accuracy is most important to us and our viewers."

extra gravy

neris wrote: »

Both have some great stuff on youtube and some other great documentaries on there aswell.

+1 for YouTube. Started rewatching the World at War there recently.

Notmything

"Curiosity Stream", is a netflix type service that has plenty of documentaries on it.

There are some good ones and they have a decent range of subject fields.

But some of them are clearly aimed at an American audience so they repeat everything every few minutes, or over sensationalise what they are investigating.

ka2

I had Sky back in the analogue days. At that time Discovery, The History Channel (as it was back then) and TLC were brilliant. It’s shameful what they have become now.

banie01

Smithsonian channel and PBS are both Freeview.
All the other documentary channels apart from Eden and maybe Yesterday are deluged with reality TV tripe.

Even NatGeo carries quite a bit.

whisky_galore

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

Badly managed really and all chasing the easy dollar. If you want good documentaries Netflix is your best bet. Some fantastic stuff on their and no pesky ads to be dealing with.

Finished the devil next door last night about Ivan the terrible. Thought it was very good, didn't know much about it previously, very harrowing viewing though.

I've gone through most of what was there, wish there was more like the Cuba Libre one, Vietnam was good also, but Netflix seems to be top heavy on Hitler-this and WW2-that. The whole WW2 thing is rather done to death in general.

whisky_galore

Notmything wrote: »

But some of them are clearly aimed at an American audience so they repeat everything every few minutes, or over sensationalise what they are investigating.

This wrecks my head.

Capt'n Midnight

whisky_galore wrote: »

The whole WW2 thing is rather done to death in general.

Best avoid Channel 5 then. On Freesat.

BBC4 does the odd ones too.

Fiorsceal on TG4 is very hit or miss, record them and check later. Mostly misses but you get the odd one that shows something you haven't seen anywhere else.

whisky_galore

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Best avoid Channel 5 then. On Freesat.

BBC4 does the odd ones too.

Fiorsceal on TG4 is very hit or miss, record them and check later. Mostly misses but you get the odd one that shows something you haven't seen anywhere else.

I don't mind things that aren't the well trodden aspects of WW2. The Hitler stuff is generally trite, usually the same colour footage at his mountain retreat on loop.

TG4 hit and miss like you say. I don't mind subtitles in foreign language productions, just not keen on force-fed Irish.
RTE used show the odd half decent one, now it's reality show filler and usual repeats.

vafankillar

Mick McGraw wrote: »

PBS channel and Smithsonian channel have some good documentaries on it.

yeah PBS is brilliant, there's a good few on youtube, but they regularly get taken down.

it's just wild that there's so much content out there and usually no easy legal way to access it. I'd pay for a PBS subscription if i could access all the documentarys on an an interface on netflix. actually netflix had a few too but they were taken off.

vafankillar

S.M.B. wrote: »

You could apply the same rationale to everything that ever found it's way onto a Sky TV channel over the past 20 years. Why isn't it all available for us to view on demand?

you couldn't really, lots of those programmes would be on sale for box sets or licenced on other streaming, but the back catelogue of the history channel was usually made specifically for the history channel, and isn't really available on sale anywhere or licenced anywhere, it's literally just existing in the vaults doing nothing.


sometimes I actually wonder if it's part of a plot to just increasingly make people more susceptable to conspiracy theory and ignorant on he past (which is itself a conspiracy theory i suppose lol)

Brian CivilEng

Recently discovered that the channel Yesterday has a decent amount of good documentaries, always thought that channel was just reruns of old comedies so pleasantly surprised. The style of documentary you would have seen on Discovery 20 years ago. The Architecture the Railways Built is one I'm enjoying at the moment. Its all in standard definition though.

Difficult to find good documentaries these days though, everything is either reality tv or that awful American #kony2012 style that is popular on Netflix or the new Sky Documentary channel. I don't want to be outraged, I just love the enthusiastic presenter standing on front of something that they are bursting to tell you about type of doc.

ka2

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Recently discovered that the channel Yesterday has a decent amount of good documentaries, always thought that channel was just reruns of old comedies so pleasantly surprised. The style of documentary you would have seen on Discovery 20 years ago. The Architecture the Railways Built is one I'm enjoying at the moment. Its all in standard definition though.

Yesterday was always a history-type channel but when they went on Freeview they started showing comedies in prime time that would normally be on Gold. They should probably just make Gold FTA and be done with it. Then Yesterday could go back to doing what it should be doing.