The History Channel and Its Nostradamus Fetish
September 15th, 2009
|
| Share |
The History Channel is a channel on television, which now prefers to simply call itself “History.” It’s based in the United States and is a subsidiary of A&E Television Networks. It is carried as basic programing on most cable and satellite television systems in the United States. It also is avaliable internationally on a variety of satellite and cable television services. History broadcasts in the US, Asia, much of Europe and Latin America. Most Canadian cable operators do not offer the channel, but the Canadian network “History Television” carries a large number of History programs under license. Programing from History is also carried internationally on Canal networks. In Scandinavia, it is carried on Viasat.
Whether or not it’s a good source of information on “History” is a bit debatable. In recent years, it’s carried a number of programs of questionable credibility including UFO Hunters and Monsterquest. Over the years, the programing on the channel has become a lot more “fluffy,” at least in this author’s opinion, and has a lot less focus on actual history.
There is one thing that really stands out about this channel, however. It loves Nostradamus. I mean REALLY loves the guy.
Nostradamus, of course, is old self-proclaimed “seer,” who lived in France in the 16th century and wrote a lot of really vague quatrains about what he claimed the future held.
Some Shows include:
1994: Nostradamus: Profit of Doom (From A&E “Biography” series – Frequently airs on History)
1998: Nostradamus: His Life and Prophecies
2003: Nostradamus: 500 Years Later
2005: The Other Nostradamus (An episode of the “Decoding the Past” series)
2007: The Lost Book of Nostradamus
2008: The Next Nostradamus
2009: Nostradamus 2012
2009: The Nostradamus Effect (Not a single show – a whole series)
That’s just the shows dedicated to Nostradamus. There are many others that include Nostradamus along with other proclaimed profits and prophecies, as well as various “doomsday” shows. In fact, that seems to be the primary kind of show these days.
What exactly is the deal here? Honestly I don’t know. Idiotic shows are likely a good way to get ratings up, but if Nostradamus is such a popular subject for drawing in viewers, why is it just History that is running constant Nostradamus programming and not other networks? Even compared to the other crap on TV, there is a disproportionately large amount of really stupid woo-based tv on History. Perhaps they’re trying to appeal to a certain demographic (idiots).
I miss the days when there was actually some good programing on the History Channel. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually seen a show worth watching on their listings. Modern Marvels ran out of descent stuff like aircraft carriers and suspension bridges some time ago and now is dealing with things like “bathroom tech,” while also being dumbed down several times over. They do still occasionally have Hitler stuff on, but that’s about the only programing with any value at all (at least sometimes).
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Culture, History, Paranormal, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
September 15th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
I agree that the promise of decent programing from most of the so-called “educational” cable outlets has been notable for its absence of late. What there is is also repeated endlessly. The problem is that broadcast TV is probably on its way out at least in its current manifestation. Most of its market is among older, poorer and less educated demographics, while others seek entertainment and information on the Web.
Like newspapers, the format of television (not the medium) is going to have to change radically, and I doubt that “channels,” in the current push media sense of the term, will survive.
Personally, I can hardly wait, the only thing I currently watch on TV is sports.
Quote Comment
September 15th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
DV82XL said:
Despite the claim that the web is the place to go for video-based entertainment, I still have a preference for regular television content for numerous occasions. As I often do work involving computer/networking stuff that involves doing some work for a few minutes and then sitting for a few minutes while something installs or updates, having a tv on in the background helps avoid being bored to tears. I know some might say reading is more intellectual, but it is harder to read in such a situation. With the TV, I usually just passively “listen” to it and only look at it when there’s nothing to do.
Anyway, I don’t see online video sites like Youtube as a substitute for television. For one thing, most of the content is crap (okay, that’s not worse than TV) but it’s also generally avaliable in 10 minute sections which you end up watching from your desk on a windowed screen. Yes, I know there are media players and stuff that will play these videos on the television set. The problem is that the standard video resolution for web video is 320X240 – QVGA. It’s really just barely acceptable quality. Some sites offer “high quality” video which is 480×360, but that’s still very compressed and not as good as regular TV.
The quality of “High Definition” web video is deplorable. At best it’s 720P, although it is often not even that good. Even when it is “high definition” it is compressed beyond all imagination. It looks worse than standard definition broadcast television. It’s also cumbersome. When the video does not download as fast as it plays, I find that annoying as all hell. I HATE that. I want it to just play and not sit there every time it hits the end of the download buffer.
To get broadcast quality high definition video you really need at least 4-5mbps of consistent, sustained bandwidth. Not burst, but sustained, uninterrupted bandwidth of at least 4-5mbps and ideally 12mbps+. Even if you have a crazy fast connection, it is hard to sustain that kind of transfer because the servers need gargantuan amounts of bandwidth to supply multiple users. You can have FIOS or something, but if the stream gets caught in a bottleneck at one of the regional routing centers, you’ll be back with the crappy “buffering” stuff.
Sorry, but for me, web video is still just for “clips” and not for actual sitting down and watching. TV has good quality and a big screen and it doesn’t need to buffer or anything.
TV is better… when it has good content. That is not very often, but it does occasionally have excellent content. “Burning the Future” was on Bravo about a year ago. Excellent movie. Then there was a very good British documentary on World War II in the Soviet Union on PBS a couple months ago.
The stuff that really makes me actually appreciate television as a medium of merit is when on occasion they show some newly discovered archival footage or archival footage that has been restored or new and better copies found. Several years ago there was a special on the History channel that included some color footage that had been taken by the personal photographers that traveled with some of the commanders during the European campaign of the second world war. It had gone through a photochemical restoration and cleaning process. It looked absolutely stunningly vivid. Also a very good documentary on the Soviet space stations (pre-Mir) on PBS a while back. Also had stunning color footage that I hadn’t seen before.
Too bad that stuff is so rare.
Quote Comment
September 15th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
The same has happened to the discovery channel, which used to have some truly excellent programing. One of my favorites was “Wings” not to be confused with the sitcom, they would spend an hour going over the complete history and technical details of a different aircraft. Now it’s a combination of fluff and reality type crap.
There is still good programing like that, but not on the main channels. They now have secondary channels like the Science Channel and History International. They use the secondary channels to run that programing and the main channels run tabloid crap. You need digital cable or satellite with lots of channels to get it.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 12:25 am
What Bob said…the secondary “spinoff” channels are the place to go. The Science Channel spends entire days covering astronomy and theories of quantum physics…not to mention marathons of How It’s Made, which I could watch nonstop for days. Wings and similar military fare got offloaded to The Military Channel. I don’t know what Discovery ID is about, other than it being whatever grew out of the ashes when Discovery Times finally, blessedly crashed and burned.
As for The History Channel, I gave up on them when they started airing all the shameless Green Party porn in the guise of “life after people.” I’m not sure who convinced them that speculation about life thousands of years in the future in the wake of some implausible, unexplained disaster had anything to do with history.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Television (the medium) has an amazing ability to inform and educate and the unique ability to bring to us actual footage of events or of how things work and happen. It is not limited to telling you how things are, it can also show you.
It is therefore sad that this potential is so untapped. Most television is crap and intellectually worthless. The reputation of television for being mindless is because it is so rarely used for anything other than the most taboid and shallow content.
Anyone who doubts the potential of the medium for stimulating thought, as opposed to completely trashing your brain should look at any content produced by James Burke. He is one of those rare few who are scholarly and can also perfectly exploit the maximum potential of a visual medium like television.
I can’t get enough Burke. He does an excellent job of melding science with history, and it has made me think so many times of how well that kind of thing can be used as a teaching aid, because it shows you the why of science and then how of the discovery and also the historic problems and mistakes that lead to our path of understanding. Learning of how we have gotten to where we are is so important in realizing fallacies and how not to make them again.
A few others are excellent as well. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series is always a classic. Anyone here old enough to remember Watch Mister Wizard?
I know it has its compromises and is not perfect, but as for new television series in the last five years, the only one that I really look at and see something that’s useful and not an old idea recycled is Penn and Teller’s Bull****.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Gordon said:
Sure it has potential, and indeed there are the odd gemstones sprinkled in the dross, but by in large, as a push-type medium, it is on its last legs that is (like the music industry) being kept alive by legislation and governmental shortsightedness. It is time for the broadcast model to pass and be replaced by some form of video on demand or video dial tone type service.
The format is great, the problem is how it is packaged and delivered. If I am going to have to pay several hundred dollars a month for full high-end service, to get everything I want to see, I might as well pay subscriptions to those programs I want to watch. And it should go without saying – when I want to watch them.
Steve is correct when he said U-Tube-type services don’t cut it, however there are services that are trying to offer better material and while they are not ready for prime time just yet, they are the future.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
True crime stuff, mainly. I have to admit, I do enjoy the forensic shows from time to time. It’s interesting to see the process, even if it is dramatized and consequently often a little too pat.
Probably somebody who saw similar programming do well on Discovery. That may also be why they’ve been running the monster crap.
It’s generally not available in basic cable, but if you have an extended lineup, look for History International. It’s kept much more in tune with what History Channel used to be. True to its name, it runs a lot of foreign programming, mainly British, which includes several shows hosted by Tony Robinson (best known as Baldrick on “Blackadder”, but also host of great documentary shows such as “Worst Jobs In History” and some fascinating archeological stuff — regrettably, he has since done what sounds like a typically fluff paranormal show, but I suppose it pays the bills just as well). My favorite history shows, though, are those hosted by Terry Jones. I don’t recall whether those wound up on Discovery or History. I keep wishing that sort of stuff would air on BBC America, but it seldom does. BBC America seems often to undervalue the real treasure-trove of programming available to them, and it’s a shame that it’s made to compete with other networks in buying broadcast rights to BBC programs. (It was a big deal that it finally seized broadcast rights to “Doctor Who” away from the Sci-Fi Channel, though when Sci-Fi became SyFy, they seemed to lose interest in the program anyway. Now *there* is a channel that has seriously devolved from what it was.)
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Here is what I do not understand, why can I not pick and pay for only the channels I want? I have a decent cable package but in reality I only watch maybe a dozen channels. Now the History channel is one I would get rid of if I could. Ever day for at least a month where I live there has been something about the end of the world or some other woo woo crap. The same could be said for TLC, when was the last time you learned anything from the channel? Any more it is either sad reality TV or weird medical shows.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Broadcast television may be able to survive in the long run, IF it accepts that it is not the only game in town and integrates into the world of VOD and such services. My cable company has a descent VOD setup. Unlike web video, there is plenty of bandwidth and it always looks fine and works fine. It also has a simplified interface that is easily navigated without a mouse and keyboard. If this kind of delivery could be combined with the kind of content diversity that the internet offers then it would go a long way.
That said, the content could be a lot better and I think the real reason for this is that the traditional broadcasters have not embraced this. Some have online video avaliable and have accepted VOD is a venue, but in general they have not embraced it: they were dragged kicking and screaming to it.
Many of the big inovations and good ideas to change the dynamics of television have been opposed by the media companies. There have been network DVR systems that integrate VOD with user recordings, there have been technologies that push content to local discs for viewing when the consumer wants etc etc. These have often been met with lawsuits and attempts to pull programing from being avaliable on them.
Technologies like Apple TV flopped because the content on the internet is so poor in quality and availability. Nobody wants to watch five minute video clips in 320×240 resolution on their TV instead of cable or satellite. Tivo has made some strides to incorporate automated downloading of content from the internet, based on viewer selections.
This will happen. It is happening. The current systems are not always up to snuff, but they’re getting there. Apple TV was ahead of its time and limited in what it could do, but these ideas are sound. Cable companies are realizing that VOD is the future and are upgrading their systems to handle very high bandwidth. Phone companies are realizing that fiber to the home is their best way to counter this. This is going to make more things possible.
The music industry went through some similar issues. They tried despirately to cling to a buisiness model, but now they’re starting to come around and realize that they can only make it if they evolve and start thinking about satellite radio, music subscription services, online music stores etc etc. Eventually they’ll just have to embrace this stuff. Broadcasters need to also.
Also, they also have to realize that (gasp) some of their content is going to be viewed and exchanged without their consent and without them being paid. They’ve been kicking and screaming over this ever since the first Betamax players came on the market. Get over it. It’s the way the world is and it does not preclude you from making money in the marketplace, if you are willing to accept that this is the case and stop trying to desperately put the genie back in the bottle.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Mace said:
That’s called al a cart service. You can actually get it with some satellite setups. The only ones that I know allow total freedom to choose packages or channels of any kind individually are the C-band systems which are sold under the service 4DTV. This is an industrial system. You can get it for your home, but your actually picking up the signals that go to the cable head-ends. You wouldn’t save money though, because by the time you buy the ten foot dish and everything, you’d have invested quite a lot.
There are some reasons. For one thing, cable operators don’t generally pay per channel. Instead they pay for access to a whole bunch of channels from ig companies like Viacom or Discovery Communications.
Also, it’s usually technically impossible to make the channels bellow 60 or so selectable per user without giving everyone a cable box. That would be expensive. All the basic cable channels are broadcast in the clear. You just need a cable jack to hook up and watch them. Premium services are encrypted and need an authorized box.
I think satellite services like Dish and DirecTV could probably offer per-channel options, but I’m not sure how much you’d really save in the long run.
It would also depend on contracts. Some companies demand that cable carries all their channels if they carry any. Like Discovery might have a clause that all subscribers must have access to TLC on basic cable or they will refuse to authorize ANY of their channels to be carried on a system. Many of these networks make more money from ads than subscriptions.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Gordon said:
The late great Don Herbert! yes, I loved his show in the 1950-60’s and he actually had another show in the 1990’s on Nickelodeon. An older Mr. Wizard, but same basics and really it was a great show too. It was on early mornings on weekends. I remember this because I used to get up to watch it from time to time. I know, it seems a bit weird, a man in his 40’s with a doctorate in a science getting up to watch a kid’s science show, but it was a great show. I think I just got some satisfaction out of knowing that Mr. Wizard was still on TV and still educating kids. I didn’t really learn anything new from the show, although there were occasions when it jogged my memory of a fun experiment or something I had done in my youth.
I don’t know that I was a normal child, though. I didn’t watch very much television in general, but when there was something like Mister Wizard on television, or absolutely any kind of program or news item having to do with the space program I always watched it and if my little sister wanted to watch something else (on one of the other three channels) there was an ugly scene. I wouldn’t tolerate missing a science show!
Of course, there are some excellent television programs, from time to time, but they’re few and far between and it seems fewer all the time. The History Channel used to have some pretty descent programing on various topics ranging from the French Revolution to the Cold War. I don’t think I’ve seen anything worth watching on that channel in years.
One program that I still watch most of the time is Jeopardy. It’s just as much my wife, who is more fanatical about it than I am. She got started on this thing we do where we keep pads of paper and write down all the answer values we get right and wrong and also how much we’d bet for the double jeopardy part. It started as a way to compare against the contestants, but it ended up being more between the two of us. Its not like we do this every time, but she likes to keep a running tab. Somehow every time she is doing considerably worse than me, she ends up making a mistake and losing the tally. Seriously though, when she does considerably better than me, she gloats about it but when I do considerably better than she does, I can’t do the same or I end up in the doghouse (how’s that for equality?!)
I know, this is the goofiest thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life and I accept your judgment and don’t contest that I’m not what the young people call “hip” or whatever word it is.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Oh, just to add one thing. You might ask, why would a legitimate scientific researcher do a study that finds that there is a .01% corolation between two things when their error and noise threshold precludes measurement under .2% and then go and write the introduction as if they had actually found something. I don’t mean the study is flawed, but just that on first glance, the “headlines” are inflated. Two words: Grant money.
Quote Comment
September 17th, 2009 at 9:50 am
An Actual Scientist said:
I think your comment may be associated with the wrong thread. It looks more like a follow up to the one on homeopathy. Am I right? I can move it if so
Quote Comment
September 17th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Okay. If I were not a skeptic in general, I’d say that this is jinxing myself, but in reality it’s just a coincidence.
I saw an outstanding program on the History Channel last night, or at least part of it was outstanding. It actually had historical value… I mean the production of this program lead to the funding of something that changes our perception of history.
There is a skull fragment in the Russian archives. The fragment was retrieved from the shell crater that Adolf Hitler’s body was burned in. After he committed suicide, his aids put his body and that of Eva Braun into a crater outside the Furherbunker and poured gasoline on them. They did not have enough gasoline to burn them completely. The Russians found them and took them for autopsy. Eventually they were moved from grave to grave until around 1970 when they were completely cremated.
Shortly he bodies being in bad shape, having been partially burned, pieces were falling off etc. After the bodies were removed, a piece of human skull was found in the crater. It has a bullet hole in it indicating a shot from bellow and forward (such as a pistol placed in one’s mouth). This is the only part of Adolf Hitler’s mortal remains thought to still exist, as it was in the Russian archives.
This program included the first comprehensive pathological exam, including fragments removed from the skull and taken for DNA analysis. The pathologist who examined it believe the skull was not consistent with a man of 50 years old or so. It was too thin, the suchers were not completely smooth over. He thought it looked like a younger person and very possibly a woman. The DNA analysis indicated it was a female. They got enough dna to conclusively detect two X chromosomes.
That was actually something that just about dropped my jaw to the floor, as I was well aware of this skull piece and that it had always been considered to be Hitler’s. It could be that it is Eva Braun’s or it may be totally unrelated and just some random piece of bone found in Berlin or even elsewhere.
Quote Comment
September 19th, 2009 at 3:31 am
we’re pulling the plug on this bit of blasphemy called *Pharyngula*
and on the article on me you FAIL to mention the link to which it refers…
you deluded ****er
________________________________________________________
btw, this HAS been sent to entire university of morris:
http://liberalforum.org/liberalforum/index.php?/topic/71800-atheists-are-the-cause-of-911/
____________________________________________________________
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/705-as-predicted-a-psychic-failure.html
“However, I’d like to consider another aspect that is rarely discussed: the events were never in any way predicted by any of
the self-proclaimed psychics or future-seers out there. While some have claimed that the vague words of Nostradamus or some
other cryptic phrase contains clues, the fact is that nobody, no professional nor amateur psychic gave any indication that
there would be a major terrorist attack in New York City or Washington in September 2001.”
VAGUE, eh?
Quote Comment
September 19th, 2009 at 3:32 am
we’re pulling the plug on this bit of blasphemy called *Pharyngula*
and on the article on me you FAIL to mention the link to which it refers…
you deluded fu7ker
________________________________________________________
btw, this HAS been sent to entire university of morris:
http://liberalforum.org/liberalforum/index.php?/topic/71800-atheists-are-the-cause-of-911/
____________________________________________________________
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/705-as-predicted-a-psychic-failure.html
“However, I’d like to consider another aspect that is rarely discussed: the events were never in any way predicted by any of
the self-proclaimed psychics or future-seers out there. While some have claimed that the vague words of Nostradamus or some
other cryptic phrase contains clues, the fact is that nobody, no professional nor amateur psychic gave any indication that
there would be a major terrorist attack in New York City or Washington in September 2001.”
VAGUE, eh?
Quote Comment
September 19th, 2009 at 11:33 am
pzdum@er.net said:
Yes extremely vague. Just a jumble of words and abstract BS that could mean almost anything. Vague as vague could be.
BTW, to everyone else, this is a real person, not a joke. This individual is some guy who apparently connects “psychics” and Nostradamus with religion and believes atheists are the evil of the world and the biggest ones are the active promoters of empirical skepticism.
He has sent me a bunch of emails, some of them not even making much sense. He also has deluged the forums, blog and email boxes at the JREF and other skeptic organizations. When he sends out emails he sends them to myself and also to Jeff Wagg, the executive director of the JREF, Phil Plait, the president, Randi himself, Randi’s office manager, Alison, who runs the million dollar challenge etc.
While I don’t care to diagnosis anyone, this person is likely mentally ill given the obsession he has. When I mentioned him to Jeff Wagg, I was told “welcome to the club.” HE apparently does this to any high profile skeptic. Actually I felt a little flattered when Jeff said “High profile skeptic.” I mean, does this mean I am actually prominent enough for this little wacko to consider me a threat? How flattering!
Anyway, the others have blocked his email a long time ago, but he creates new email addresses and stuff, so it’s an ongoing thing.
Quote Comment
September 19th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Congratulations! (In a strange sort of way).
I don’t remember who said it, I think it might have been Jerry Seinfeld, and excuse me if I butcher this quote, but there is someone famous who once said “When I got my first real stalker, that was when I realized I had finally made it to the big time.”
A little tongue-in-cheek, by the way. It looks like you’ve upset someone else who is making it their mission to tell everyone how bad you are for insulting the great spirits and demons of the world.
Quote Comment
April 18th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Clicking on Lawanna Raffa’s name brings one to the NSFW Ultimate Porn Blog.
Just so you all know.
Quote Comment
April 4th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
I suppose that since the history,discovery, and the learning channels see more money in reality programing,that the people with the money see no reason to continue learning once they get out of high school. I have to admit that history was not my favorite subject in high school either, but THEN in the 12th grade I had a very good history teacher, who told of the many interesting parts of history, beyond just remembering dates and names. Kind of how the real history channel once did, but then they ( the channels just mentioned ) found that many veiwers didn’t care what CRAP they watched and that reality programing was a lot cheaper. So thats where we ( the people who still wanted to learn ) are , out voted by a bunch of people who no longer want to learn anything anymore, and somehow have enough money to get their wishes !
Quote Comment
April 5th, 2011 at 2:16 am
Actually the people running those networks are probably just media studies majors who don’t have any idea of whether or not a paranormal show is nonsense.
In the beginning they probably had people who knew what they were doing running things (or at least in the position of advisor closely listened to) but overtime I suspect they’ve lost them and so became easy prey for the crap peddlers.
Quote Comment
May 2nd, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Whatever happened to Decisive Battles or Command Decisions. Those shows were about famous battles in history and they were much better than the idiotic conspiracy crap thats on the History Channel right now…
Quote Comment