Mermaids & Megalodon...Has the Discovery channel lost credibility?

Oh god.. The mermaids one got a friend of mines mom. Reality almost destroyed their relationship.

And Discovery is shit. I used to love Mythbusters and it is pretty much unwatchable now. Tons of replays and bullshit and 20% actual interesting TV.

All in the search for advertising dollars.

Otherwise why would various channels be running Ancient Aliens 4–5 times a week?

Why would there be shows like Finding the Loch Ness monster?

….it’s always about money.

The inevitable fate of private channels
BBC all the way.

My opinion is that no media outlet has much credibility. Even BBC and PBS/NPR aren’t completely credible, but they’re better than most. Even most documentaries are made with a biased view on the topic. Fictional entertainment is mostly intended to sensationalize in order to attract viewers and sell more of whatever they’re pushing.

The Discovery Channel and TLC (the supposed Learning Channel) both went to Hell in a handbasket quite a while ago (along with Food Network) when they started pandering to the lowest common denominator.

It’s unlikey to change either because obviously the LCD has a shitload of mindless idiots attracted to that crap.

TV really is becoming a total wasteland with choices of quality becoming fewer and fewer all the time.

Yes.

But not because of the two things you’ve mentioned.

Mermaids have never existed but their lore is legitimate history.

Megalodon falls into the category of natural history.

The History channel is shredding it’s credibility with so called reality television.

This site claims to offer credible sightings of a Megalodon shark. http://cryptid.hubpages.com/hub/Is-the-Megalodon-Shark-Still-Alive

Yes, mermaids lore is legitimate & megaladon existed once upon a time but that’s not how those shows presented them.

Fuck Discovery channel. It’s a shame really, growing up I used to learn so much from Discovery, Animal Planet and History, but now they’re just full of bs reality shows. The mockumentary bullshit with Discovery is particularly annoying. Yea, the mermaid thing says it’s a mockumentary, but only at the very end of the credits , something most people didn’t see. I honestly have people ask me if I, as a marine biologist, plan on studying mermaids. – _ -

Also, FUCK SHARK WEEK. Used to be informative, now it’s a bunch of scare stories. I thought the idea of shark week was to break up some of the myth surrounding sharks, not stir up more hysteria.

@El_Cadejo Word.

Here’s an article talking about how Discovery deceived marine biologists and coached their interviews to make some of those BS shows like Voodoo Shark.

Yep. I used to love the history channel, even though back in the day it did seem a little odd to me that 75% of the shows were Nazi related. Still, I found it interesting. I get it that they need good ratings but what’s that say about the viewer base? I used to even enjoy the occasional “aliens are everywhere” conspiracy shows, but now if you turn H2 after 6 P.M it’s “aliens are everywhere” until the info-mercials start at 3 A.M. I know one should never look to television for educational purposes, but sometimes I would like to be able to turn on something that’s entertaining & informative. Not something that’s complete bullshit posing as something informative. If you’re going to talk about mermaids, talk about them as myth. If you’re going to talk about megaladon, talk about it as natural history. And I completely agree with you, El Cadejo. Shark week has become a tool of fear instead of knowledge. It really is a shame.

What? Those shows were fake? J/k… I miss old Discovery channel were they would show a 2 hour special on ants.