Little Mermaid, which was not: the decline and the collapse of educational TV

“God should be extremely funny if he finds that this tree continues to exist even when there is no one in the yard” (c) Ronald Knox

Today, the management of TV channels with a persistence worthy of a better application, is trying to make all artistic production as stereotyped as possible. They have not yet achieved complete success on this front (and will not achieve it - due to the increasing demands of the audience), but the popular science channels today are a depressing spectacle - and, what is most terrible, the audience is not to blame for this.







A great example is the fate of the American educational show "Sign Language " - huge ratings, adults and children are delighted, a lot of awards. It seems that the invisible hand of the market pushed Disney and PBS to launch a cage of similar television shows. But no - this did not happen. Do you know why? Because the management of TV channels decided that "such programs are too educational for television . " No, seriously: "we were told more than once for the show . " I don’t even know how to comment it out except for “oh lol”. How can children's TV shows be “too” educational?

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Although a rational explanation probably still exists. Remember how in the ghetto animated series the directors of Evil Television For Black discuss how to make programs for African Americans so bad to increase unemployment, illiteracy and teenage pregnancy?



- “You all do not work well - today I saw three niggaz reading a book!”

“Don't worry, ma'am, now we are creating a reality show about ninja robots and we are financing a program about the benefits of consuming fried chicken and juice!”



That feeling does not leave me that on modern TV something like this is being done. Moreover, somewhere TV channels go on a frank forgery, deserving a loud lawsuit. And they do it deserved and respected TV channels.



About six months ago, Discovery TV channel launched quite a serious program, which proved that the megalodon is still alive today.



Reference: megalodon (Greek μέγας and Greek ὀδούς - “big tooth”) is an extinct species of giant sharks, whose remains are found in sediments from the late Oligocene (approximately 28 million years ago) to the Pleistocene (1.5 million years ago).



It looked like this . At the very end, the authors placed a reminder that everything shown in the video is fiction and production. Already in 3 seconds. It is not surprising that 79% of viewers decided that what was shown was absolutely true (do you usually expect falsification from a famous TV channel? I, too) - which, in the end, provoked a wave of indignation on the part of viewers. Which, what would not say the producers do not like to be deceived.



Another good channel Animal Planet a year and a half ago released a program about the existence of mermaids. It got to the point that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was forced to make an OFFICIAL statement that mermaids do not exist .





Alas, the existence of mermaids is not proven



A few words could be said here about the infectiousness of a bad example, but everything is explained by the “party and government program”: Discovery Networks owns both Discovery and Animal Planet (and also Science Channel, Military Channel and TLC - which makes this company one of the main players in the niche of educational TV in the USA - and therefore in the world). And this trend was set in 2007 when a new managing director from NBC came to Discovery Networks. Well, you know, such a "successful and effective" - ​​as the owner of the restaurant from the cartoon "Ratatouille."



Although perhaps the directors of TV channels do not see anything wrong in their work. Probably, they just read George Berkeley too much and now they think that if they convince others of the existence of any object, it would mean its immediate materialization.



I myself treat the human race with a fair amount of skepticism, but I am 100% sure of one thing: the audience is not idiots. People want to watch quality smart broadcasts. If they had the opportunity to vote, I assure you, they will prefer to watch CGI mermaids as Michael Wood follows the path of Alexander the Great's army in the war-ridden Afghanistan of the early 2000s. You just need to give them the opportunity to vote - which some applications, say, for Smart TV can do today.