Whether or not you’ve decided to cut the cord at home, there’s no denying that TV is a lot different than it used to be. While plenty of channels and networks have evolved and modernized into the streaming era, others have languished. Unfortunately, some of these include once iconic stations like the History Channel—and now, fans are voicing their frustrations about its current lackluster offerings.
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Former fans say the History Channel is all “alien shows.”
In a Reddit post, user @thundersnow86 bemoaned how difficult it is to find well-made documentaries and meaningful historical programming on today’s version of the History Channel.
“Is it just me, or does anyone wish there was a place like the old History Channel?” they wrote. “The History Channel was so interesting, but now it’s just aliens shows.”
A peek at the channel’s current schedule shows that this opinion isn’t exactly an exaggeration. As of this writing, uninterrupted blocks of the network’s widely mocked show Ancient Aliens runs all day on Fridays through early Saturday morning and then again on Sundays through the pre-dawn hours on Monday. The long-running program has long been called out by those in historical and scientific academic circles for its notorious distortion of the truth and use of unverified interviews to sensationalize topics typically related to extraterrestrials’ role in major events throughout Earth’s history.
Other days of the week are filled with similarly long blocks of only vaguely history-related shows. This includes The UnXplained, in which host William Shatner delves into folklore and mysteries, and the treasure-hunting reality show The Curse of Oak Island. The channel also shows blocks of two of its long-running reality hits, Pawn Stars and American Pickers.
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There’s been a shift to reality TV and poor fact-checking over the past decade.
Even if it was once the go-to for historical documentaries, the History Channel’s own history isn’t all that different from other stations in recent years. According to TV Insider, the channel began shifting towards reality programming in 2007 with the breakout success of Ice Road Truckers. It was quickly followed by Ax Men the following year.
However, it wasn’t just the format change that riled up viewers. Over the following decade, the network would find itself in hot water several times for misrepresenting historical facts. In 2011, the channel canceled the scripted series The Kennedys after historians lambasted the show for leaning more heavily into soap opera-style drama rather than being an informative program, per TV Insider.
In 2017, the network came under fire once again after it aired a documentary that claimed to have photographic proof that legendary aviator Amelia Earheart had been captured by the Japanese military. However, historians were able to almost immediately discredit the snapshot with less than an hour of cursory online research, bringing the History Channel to disavow the program and pull it from ever being aired again.
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Viewers are fed up with the History Channel.
Besides the overabundance of alien content, other users bemoaned the overall deterioration of the History Channel and its obsession with “conspiracy theories” and cryptozoological topics like Bigfoot.
“I miss History Channel Friday nights when R. Lee Ermey had his show,” a viewer wrote on Reddit, referencing the character actor’s military history show Mail Call that ran on the network from 2002 through 2009.
Still, other users pointed out that History hasn’t been the only network to go downhill. Once popular channels like Discovery, MTV, the Weather Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet have all but lost the focus suggested by their names.
However, some said there was still a streaming-era solution to the problem. Reddit user @tunaman808 said that with a smart TV, Roku, or other plug-in device, it’s easy to watch quality history content on YouTube channels. Others suggest streaming PBS’s ample library of historical documentaries and content.