Talk:The History Channel

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Contents 1 Canadaion station 2 Requested move 2.1 Support 2.2 This Page is not from a NPOV 3 it's available in more countries 4 Bogus? 5 Ownership 6 Political Slant? 7 A Possible Addition? 8 Launch?

[edit] Canadaion station

The current article states that

" It is often confused with an independently-owned, but similar, Canadian service, History Television."

However, I have never heard of the Canadaion station 'History Television', and I doubt that many people outside of the Canada/US border have (and I even get a Canadian station in NY). Perhaps this is a minor point, but wouldn't it be more appropriate and 'scientific' to state that the History Channel can be confused with History TV, or that a similar service operates in Canada under the name History TV? Tkessler 03:46, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request.

History Channel → The History Channel – {"The History Channel" (with the definite article) is the trademarked name of the television channel} — Literaryfairy 02:57, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

[edit] Support

1. I did some searching around on their website and I found them to use "The History Channel" and not "the History Channel" so go with the full title. Cburnett 06:26, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This Page is not from a NPOV

This page is not presented in a neutral point of view. The page starts off with "Criticisms"- Shouldnt this be at the end of the article? And on top of that the Criticism section contains completely unfounded claims that spread thru more than half the article- claims that it is overly militaristic and has a pro-america bias are without basis. Whoever wrote that obviously is not a regular viewer of the history channel. I have seen countless specials that discussed the horror and failures of America. I dont know how many specials Ive seen about the atomic bomb that stressed the devestation on INNOCENT CIVILIANS- and the Vietnam specials I have seen on THC have been far from pro American biased. Many of them showed our involvment in Vietnam and our illegal invasion on Cambodia and the presidents of the time (LBJ- NIXON) in unflattering light. And i remember the three hour "WORLD WAR ONE PRESENTED IN COLOR" special was bitterly critical of the war. Plus going to World War Two- ive seen many specials that had criticism toward FDR- many saying he "wanted an excuse for war". This entire article needs to be cleaned up.

-Anthony

Where'd the criticism go anyway? While it offers much good material on history, The History Channel is at times less than scholarly, speaking of the prophecies of Nostradamus, etc, as fact. Also, even if the channel does criticizes the US at time, the material presented tends to concern the US and as such is biased toward the US. I imagine that many historians have criticized the channel and that information should be presented in some form here.

Theshibboleth 20:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's the inexplicably deleted (no edit summary) Criticism section:

Programming related to World War II and the American Civil War has long been a staple of the History Channel, often to the exclusion of other subjects and eras. This has earned it the derisive moniker "the Hitler Channel".

The channel has come under criticism for the hawkish, highly Americentric perspective of many of its programs, and for its tendency to offer rather shallow interpretations of history —particularly recent history, and events involving the United States. As with many other American-based cable programming networks, its programming is largely free of dissenting or controversial views. Many of its war-oriented programs, particularly those dealing with recent events, such as Mail Call, are criticized as one-sided and overly enthusiastic —even promotive —of militarism. It has also been criticized for ignoring the less flattering periods of American history, such as the Vietnam War.

The audience of the History Channel is overwhelmingly male, which has been suggested to be both as a cause and effect of its bellicose content.

I'm going to start looking for sources on the criticism.

Theshibboleth 20:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The history channel is not a non-profit research group, they are a company. A company that promotes anti-US views inside the U.S. will simply land itself with a boycott by patriotic viewers and its rating will suffer. For example compare Fox's ratings to CNN's or MSNBC’s, Fox at least to me seems more patriotic and there rating seem to show it. The history channel does though in many of its documentaries interview the opposite side and they are allowed to voice their opinions. Even with this the history channel never once to my knowledge has stated on the air that they are npov. Also to discuss the program Mail Call I would like to point out it is obviously not a in detailed history but a more entertainment oriented program focusing mainly on battle trivia and weapons. We must remember if the History Channels predominatlely American and British audience just maybe the audience wants to continually hear about how they beat Hitler and how they won the cold war and all the great technologies they invented and all the terrorists they are killing now. It is simply driven by demand, they focus on the history the viewers want to hear. Tjb891 01:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

From what I have seen, criticisms belong at the top. Omissions seem more significant than content, to me. It appears to be Ripley's Believe It or Not! style history. Specifically, there was a show on the Spanish Inquisition that did not mention Islam. David R. Ingham 03:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] it's available in more countries

Here in Portugal we have thc

You need to sign your comments. Haizum 07:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bogus?

I'm afraid I'm going to need to see some sort of reputable citation for "the Hitler Channel." I believe I've seen this very same article with THS being called "the War Channel," so which is it? Either? It really sounds made up by an editor; I've NEVER heard THS called anything but "The History Channel." Haizum 07:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• Look here: [1]. It was certainly not made up by the editor. (if the link breaks, it was a Google Groups search for "The Hitler Channel") (DrZarkov 19:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC))

Bizzarely I over to see if anyone had made a reference to "the hitler channel". I've seen it used quite often in the UK. I'll try and dig up some links.

Look here [2]Tjb891 01:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

--Charlesknight 11:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ownership

In this age of media, ownership is important. While mentioning A&E is a start, it should have more information, such as the Viacom information on the Comedy Central page.

Did any one notice "The War Channel" came out of nowhere? It seems like there was history shows of all sorts, then one day nothing but war shows.

And a lot of the shows seems 'dubious.' ex) Da Vinci Code, Bible Code, Iran: The Next Iraq.

[edit] Political Slant?

I haven't watched enough of THC to know: Does it have a slant? This may sound like a bogus question, but if newsmagazines like Newsweek are supposed to present the news accurately and objectively but are known to lean in a certain direction, a history channel may too. If there is evidence either way or none whatsoever, it may deserve mention in the article. Minutiaman 23:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC) (belatedly signing my own edit)

I don't know that there's a political slant to the channel. Certainly the lighter stuff like American Eats seems to have no discernible politics except that yummy things are...yummy. Oh, some of the more sugary things come in for light criticism over calorie count. But that's really stretching the idea of political slant.

The channel's most obvious bias is U.S.-centrism and beyond that, Euro-centrism. (Even on the lighter stuff. That's why they call it American Eats, after all.) You're not going to see much on the channel about, say, the history of Chile or Madagascar or Sri Lanka. This is inevitable, of course, because a U.S. cable outlet isn't going to draw scads of viewers with a nineteen-part special on Sri Lanka a thousand years ago. I suppose some mention could be made of this in the article, but it might be stating the obvious.

Another clear bias is towards more recent times. The twentieth century, for instance, gets far more thorough treatment than, say, the Middle Ages. Again, this is inevitable on a channel that has to attract viewers, quite a few of whom lived through part of the twentieth century but not too many of whom lived through any part of the Middle Ages.

The reasons for these biases are so obvious that noting them might sound like captious criticism. What else would people expect from a commercial network that has to appeal to modern-day American viewers? Casey Abell 22:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Good points, but encyclopedias contain true and important facts, even if they may Seem obvious or are very well-known. I think CNN started out more dominantly in America but has migrated elsewhere too because of its international focus; I may be wrong about this, but the point in, a history channel based in American does not necessarily focus mostly on American history, especially given the specialization of channel topics. Minutiaman 06:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

CNN still devotes most of its coverage to U.S. and U.S.-related news, though it has a sister channel, CNN International. Anyway, I've noted the History Channel's emphasis on American and Western history, and on the history of more recent times, in reasonably NPOV language to avoid looking unfair or obvious in the statement. I had to partially revert some clearly POV language ("infamously") contributed by an anonymous editor, which had previously been reverted completely. Casey Abell 01:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Possible Addition?

I was thinking about making an addationial paragraph that might improve the quality of this article. I just wanted to make sure if a 'cricism of the history channel' or 'viewers response' would be ok with the people who actually read these articles

The article already notes the channel's bias towards American and recent history. A "criticism" section would need to be balanced to avoid NPOV issues. I'm not sure what a "viewer's response" section would be, other than subjective opinion which would also need to be balanced. Casey Abell 11:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Launch?

Like the Travel Channel, I'm wondering when the The History Channel launch? I'm guessing in the range of 1992-1996, but I'd like a specific launch date from anyone who knows.

According to the NCTA website the network launched in January, 1995. I put the date into the article. Casey Abell 12:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks man.

Added dogfights.

Seems this article need a lot more content and clearing-up.