Discovery Channel Slammed for Mockumentary

[Gordian Knot]

The Discovery channel started their 26th year of Shark Week with a mockumentary on Megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark that has supposedly survived to the present day.

Viewers are outraged. OUTraged I tell you. That a "serious" channel like Discovery would lower themselves to airing such a sham of a program.

Oh and it had the biggest audience of any episode in the entire 26 year run of Shark Week episodes.

Discovery hammered for shark special

So just who is actually to blame here?????

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

This is the sort of thing I keep an open mind about, but don't take at face value. It's unlikely there's any left out there, but there is the possibility. Hell, Coelacanth is still out there, and it was thought long extinct.

 

[svalbard]

The Sharks and Nazis Channel as we call it

 

[hopewrites]

Didnt they take the same kind of heat for their program on mermaids?

I think the reason people would be outraged is that they want these things to exist, and when a trusted source proclaims to have Information on why and how they could exist, its rather like your parents asking you to believe in santa one more time.
Ofcoures your going to. You wouldnt dare not believe. Just in case. But deep in your logical mind lie all the evidence painstakingly accrued over a lifetime, stating why such dreams won't come true.

So yeah its going to get massive rattings. Be watched and rewatched for years to come. Because we want it to be true. But our logical selves are outraged that all their careful work in disenchanting us with these ideas is undone by hope.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Technically, hope, as Animal Planet was part of the Discovery chain.

 

[Gordian Knot]

I do not think I could call any television channel a "trusted source", Hope. But then I am a cynical old fart!

The issue here, for me, goes well beyond Discovery airing a completely fake documentary. I have to underscore again, this fake episode got the highest audience viewership than any other Shark Week episode in its entire 26 year run!

If people will tune in to see pseudo-science, but won't tune in for real science, what does that tell us about what the average television viewer wants to see? Cable channels are in the business to make money, no matter whether it is the Discovery channel or the Wrestling channel.

Is it worthwhile for Discovery to show a bullcrap documentary to rake in the cash so they can fund a real science documentary that fewer viewers will tune in for? That folks, is my query.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

 

[Foxbat]

Is it worthwhile for Discovery to show a bullcrap documentary to rake in the cash so they can fund a real science documentary that fewer viewers will tune in for? That folks, is my query.

Well, I have to go to work most days even if I don't want to so, yes, I can see why they would feel the need to do something like this. Every TV channel (even the BBC) are ruled by their ratings and I see Discovery being no different. But, perhaps the thing the channel is most guilty of is over-estimating the sense of humour present in their viewers.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Still much preferable to the 'History' Channel continually showing Storage Wars and Pawn Star. I remember when it used to be really entertaining...

 

[JoanDrake]

I do not think I could call any television channel a "trusted source", Hope. But then I am a cynical old fart!

The issue here, for me, goes well beyond Discovery airing a completely fake documentary. I have to underscore again, this fake episode got the highest audience viewership than any other Shark Week episode in its entire 26 year run!

If people will tune in to see pseudo-science, but won't tune in for real science, what does that tell us about what the average television viewer wants to see? Cable channels are in the business to make money, no matter whether it is the Discovery channel or the Wrestling channel.

Is it worthwhile for Discovery to show a bullcrap documentary to rake in the cash so they can fund a real science documentary that fewer viewers will tune in for? That folks, is my query.

______________________________________________________________________________
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Well, this, at least suggests the process in your last two paras may be the other way around

Ratings - Science Channel's Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman Becomes the Highest Rated Series Premiere in Network History | TheFutonCritic.com

Yeh, ok, the Mermaid thing was, truly, more about "the rotting carcass of Science programming on television" than any poor sea creature, and the Megalodon thing is more of the same, but c'mon, this is not a special on Scientology curing cancer. I doubt very much we are going to see fleets of boats going out like in "Jaws" and clogging up the oceans.

You wanna see some pseudoscience? Watch Dr Oz one day, and he's talking about your health fer crissake. OTOH most of what he suggests won't do you any harm

Science Literature of any type for the general public has a lot of the "Gee whiz" factor. TV producers being what they are often forget everything but this. But if Megalodon gets people to read Cousteau then I say it's done more good than bad, overall.

 

[JoanDrake]

Still much preferable to the 'History' Channel continually showing Storage Wars and Pawn Star. I remember when it used to be really entertaining...

Yes, but it very rapidly got to the point where Craig Ferguson, when he was introducing someone trying to do a pilot on the History Channel said. "who is it? Hitler? I'm not having Hitler on, and nothing else is on the History channel."

 

[Gordian Knot]

But if Megalodon gets people to read Cousteau then I say it's done more good than bad, overall.

But that is the real question isn't it? I'm not at all sure that watching trash science will get people to read Cousteau. More like it will get them to read von Daniken.

And notice what episode from Freeman's show got that huge ratings. "Is There a Creator". That is not a science program! There is no way to investigate the existence of such a being using the scientific method.

Morgan Freeman's show got huge ratings because it was Morgan Freeman, a very popular actor. If it was Through the Wormhole with Michio Kaku, would it get the same ratings? And Kaku is one of the more well known physicists.