TV Channels that you used to love, but now are terrible?

Arztwolf · Jan 24, 2015

Mine are "non fiction/educational" stations, since that is mostly what I watch.

History Channel used to always have something interesting on (even if it was Hitler/Nazis/WW2 for awhile) but now its mostly:
*Cool Things Found/Brought To Pawnshops/Auctions
*People Surviving/Working In Dangerous Environments
*The End Is Nigh/Apocalypse.
*Aliens-Did-It/Conspiracypalooza
Rarely I will find something that is not of the above. The first two would be interesting, if they weren't so dramatized and overabundant.

Discovery Health/Fit&Health was fascinating for awhile, now it's like the modern day freak show style shows on TLC had a love child with Lifetime Network. It has become:
*Look At How Big/Small/Fat/Thin/Deformed This Person Is!
* City Name ER or Wild And Crazy ER.
*Let's Gawk At The Mentally Ill Person's Hoarding/Weird Eating Habits/Obsessions.
*"Insert the Blank" Pregnant/Pregnancy.
If the first and third where handled better I would watch them (I hate the "Look at this strange person!" vibe some of them have). I can't get pregnant and I've done two. I like the shows like Mystery Diagnosis or the ones that followed the Schizophrenic girl named January.

mrsmig · Jan 25, 2015

What I used to call the "smart channels" - Discovery, History, TLC (remember those initials once stood for "The Learning Channel?"), A&E, Bravo, NatGeo - have all changed from intelligent programming to reality shows and idiotic competitions. And they all have exactly the same programming now: the pawn shop/picker series, the gearhead series (car and motorcycle versions), the redneck series (with a whole sub-category of Alaskan redneck programs), the survival series (both clothed and naked), and so on.

Weirdly, the Weather Channel used to be one of my favorites: low-key forecasters explaining what was going on by using simple graphics. I found it both informative and oddly soothing. Then they added loud-mouthed Al Roker to the morning mix and I couldn't watch it anymore. Then, with Hurricane Katrina, weather suddenly became Big News and weatherfolk couldn't just sit in a studio; they had to go out and STAND in the bad weather and screech to us about how BAD it was. The studio sets now look like something out of QVC - all sparklies and odd camera angles and the weatherfolk standing in front of their desks (because no one sits anymore because THAT'S BORING) and trying to make 40 degrees in Florida sound like a catastrophe. It's almost like they're willing the weather to be bad so they'll have something new to screech about.

Marlys · Jan 25, 2015

I liked MTV back when it was a music video channel. That was a very long time ago.

Oh, and fairly recently there was a big breaking news story. I headed for CNN, and they had a pre-recorded show on. So I tried MSNBC, and they did, too. Didn't they used to be 24-hour news stations?

Night_Writer · Jan 25, 2015

Court TV used to be good. Then it turned into TruTV. And then it turned into WTF-TV.

LittlePinto · Jan 25, 2015

"Yes" to all the above. Animal Planet and Travel Channel also used to be pretty good but then took a nose dive into sub-mediocrity.

regdog · Jan 25, 2015

Agreeing with all of the above

Maryn · Jan 25, 2015

Essentially, all those cable channels sacrificed their branding for profits, airing shows which drew more viewers.

There's a reason many of us virtually never flip channels and find something watchable any more, although I used to. Now I've queued watchable shows in various streaming services, and despite the loss of branding, I never, ever watch most cable channels. I imagine this is not unusual, and that there will be further scrambling for the remaining viewers and the connected advertising revenue.

Maryn, disgusted

Snowstorm · Jan 25, 2015

I agree with all others as well, but Animal Planet has dived into "what the hell" category. Last night I saw they're starting a "cool pool" type show. Pools. Swimming pools. For people.

Ketzel · Jan 25, 2015

HGTV used to be a little more varied. Now it seems to be all HouseHunters, Property Brothers and that insane woman who rehabs old houses while screeching at the camera.

Brightdreamer · Jan 25, 2015

When I was a kid, I used to love ABC - and I learned to stop trusting a channel when they kept bouncing Sledge Hammer! all over the schedule.

I also used to watch FOX during the X-Files era. Won't go near it these days.

As for cable, AMC used to be great, back before they started editing shows, adding commercials, and running junk (relegating the real "American Classics" to the premium channels.)

Anything owned by Discovery... Fifty thousand channels and counting, shuffling the same twenty shows between them, all going after the same demographic. (Do they really thing the same guy can watch, let alone buy sponsor products/services, from that many channels at a time?) I wish I could say I saw some hope when the new guy took it over, vowing to do away with the fake mermaid "documentary" crap, but reading between the lines of his little speech I can't say I trust him not to do more of the same, if in a lightly redressed packaged.

Then there's SciFi... let's just pretend it went off the air, shall we?

Also agree on MTV. When they stopped running music videos, they died to me.

(I don't watch TV much at all anymore. A little PBS now and again and the odd time-killing rerun on MeTV is about it. Some of the premium channel stuff intrigues me, but not enough to spring for the cost of so much junk I'll never watch.)

SirVay · Jan 25, 2015

My vote goes to VH1. How they went from the adult contemporary version of MTV to another channel for 3rd tier reality shows is beyond me. In fact, wasn't VH1 started in the first place because they were trying to kill off an MTV clone from Ted Turner's people?

CrastersBabies · Jan 25, 2015

Definitely MTV and VH1.

I watched the MTV awards last time and I hadn't seen a single one of the videos. Then I realized, I hadn't see a music video on MTV in 10 years. I wondered, "How the hell do people even know what these videos are?" I imagine many watch on Youtube.

Even MTV2 doesn't have music videos. Just Jackass type stuff.

VH1 is full of Housewife/Rockwife/R&B/Rap wife bullshit. I can't even watch the channel anymore.

I dislike most of the reality programs on TLC, History, A&E, etc. I realize why they do it--because reality TV is far less expensive to produce than a lot of stuff. (Though I do like some Ancient Aliens--I'll admit--though you can only find that on H2 now.)

I have love/hate with The History Channel. I enjoy the holy heck out of Vikings and really liked the Hatfields and McCoys. Looking forward to the Sons of Liberty tonight and just finished the Revolution mini-series. It's one of those channels that I mine ahead for 2-3 weeks, select what I'll record, and then watch it all on the DVR.

SirVay · Jan 25, 2015

CrastersBabies said:
Definitely MTV and VH1.

I watched the MTV awards last time and I hadn't seen a single one of the videos. Then I realized, I hadn't see a music video on MTV in 10 years. I wondered, "How the hell do people even know what these videos are?" I imagine many watch on Youtube.

Even MTV2 doesn't have music videos. Just Jackass type stuff.

VH1 is full of Housewife/Rockwife/R&B/Rap wife bullshit. I can't even watch the channel anymore.

I dislike most of the reality programs on TLC, History, A&E, etc. I realize why they do it--because reality TV is far less expensive to produce than a lot of stuff. (Though I do like some Ancient Aliens--I'll admit--though you can only find that on H2 now.)

I have love/hate with The History Channel. I enjoy the holy heck out of Vikings and really liked the Hatfields and McCoys. Looking forward to the Sons of Liberty tonight and just finished the Revolution mini-series. It's one of those channels that I mine ahead for 2-3 weeks, select what I'll record, and then watch it all on the DVR.

If you miss what put the "History" in The History Channel, you should check a channel called H2. I'm not sure if you cable provider carries it, but basically it shows what The History Channel USED to be before "Swamp People" et al. came along.

Chasing the Horizon · Jan 25, 2015

I can't comment on the current state of various channels because I cancelled cable and switched to watching what I care about online 2 years ago. There was no point in continuing to have actual TV because all they had was 10,000 utterly crap "reality" shows that are really just a circus freak-show without the cotton candy vendors.

Discovery Health, A&E, History, and Court TV all used to have good stuff, but they've sucked for a long time. The shows I watch online now are all scripted, mostly off premium channels (Showtime, HBO) or BBC with a few Netflix Originals thrown in.

kuwisdelu · Jan 25, 2015

I'd second or third most of the ones listed.

I'll add Nickelodeon. Used to have really great shows that you could enjoy as a kid and enjoy in a totally different way as an adult. I feel like their shows have been really dumbed down. Their last decent show was SpongeBob, which has also gone downhill.

mellymel · Jan 25, 2015

Night_Writer said:
Court TV used to be good. Then it turned into TruTV. And then it turned into WTF-TV.

This.

regdog · Jan 25, 2015

Oh, I want to add any channel that airs any kind of "-wives"

There aren't enough words to describe my loathing of "-wives" shows.

Diana Hignutt · Jan 25, 2015

Two of my big ones would be History and The Weather Channel, of as they should be known now, the Doom Channel and The Fear-monger Channel, respectively.

BenPanced · Jan 25, 2015

Brightdreamer said:
As for cable, AMC used to be great, back before they started editing shows, adding commercials, and running junk (relegating the real "American Classics" to the premium channels.)

They lost a HYOOGE chunk of their programming when Warner Bros./MGM decided they weren't going to renew the broadcast rights to their catalog and kept everything for Turner Classic Movies. Considering how many thousands of movies they no longer had rights to, it's no wonder they've faltered over the years. (I don't even know if they still have their American Pop! spin-off channel.)

frimble3 · Jan 25, 2015

What I'd really like to know is whether its: companies wanting to start a 'classy' specialty subject channel, discovering they aren't making money (too 'niche'?), then throwing up their hands and going for whatever crap drew eyeballs, or, company solely in it for the money, pretending to start a 'classy', specialty subject channel so they can get licensing approval, all the while planning to switch to crap in a year or so, under the guise of 'financial necessity'.
Essentially, is it desperation or a cunning plan?

Because, realistically, how many of these specialty channels can the system support? There are only so many programs per specialty, before they get repetitive, and only so many hours in the day to watch them. (And, a lot of subjects that can be adequately covered by a couple of You-tube videos.)

The ones that stick to their original mandates seem to be the various forms of public broadcasting (PBS, etc), which aren't solely reliant on advertising. Pledge drives, while annoying, seem to ensure that specialty interests are supported without having to provide a big market for advertisers. And, they don't stick to one subject or theme: a little scripted fiction (chiefly imported ie British), some documentaries, current events, arts programming and cooking shows.
Something for everyone, and generally stuff that wouldn't make it onto regular networks: not 'exciting' and not a big audience.

Brightdreamer · Jan 25, 2015

BenPanced said:
They lost a HYOOGE chunk of their programming when Warner Bros./MGM decided they weren't going to renew the broadcast rights to their catalog and kept everything for Turner Classic Movies. Considering how many thousands of movies they no longer had rights to, it's no wonder they've faltered over the years. (I don't even know if they still have their American Pop! spin-off channel.)

That would explain the movie selection, not the intrusive editing and ad breaks. The overall quality of the channel just tanked.

Shadow_Ferret · Jan 26, 2015

SciFi Channel before it became SyFy and lost all relevence to its name.

AMC - American Movie classic which rarely plays movies or classics, not sure about the American part.

BBC America - rename it the Star Trek: The Next Generation channel. Wasn't that an AMERICAN show? Oh, wait, they also have that car show on.

TVLand - used to show classic television. Thank goodness for MeTV.

Court TV -- where you could watch real courts in session. Remember watching the Jeffrey Dahmer trial? Now its been changed to what? TruTV, where they show every episode of Cops.

And people already mentioned all the educational channels that now show fluff reality shows about people pawning their duck calls they got from a storage locker full of bar makeover equipment.

CrastersBabies · Jan 26, 2015

SyFy is getting back into more genre programming. Helix and 12 Monkeys are solid shows.

BBC America brings me Orphan Black, so no complaints here.

Pterofan · Jan 27, 2015

Cartoon Network lost me when they started running live-action movies. And what's this vendetta they seem to have against shows starring DC Comics heroes? That channel should be a showcase for DC animation.

Marlys · Jan 27, 2015

CrastersBabies said:
BBC America brings me ~~Orphan Black~~ Doctor Who, so no complaints here.

Fixed!

I thought Orphan Black started out strong, but they'd lost me by the end of the first season.

TV Channels that you used to love, but now are terrible?

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