Either Do Your Job or Change Your Name

When my cable provider announce they would carry The Learning Channel, it felt like my birthday. I love PBS. Shows like Frontline, Nova, Nature, etc. have provided my favorite television moments. If you took the name of this new cable network at face value, I was getting the commercial version of PBS. I imagined all kinds of shows where I would learn things, because you know, it's in their name.

I'd experienced The History, Discovery, and Weather Channels. At that time, there was history on the History Channel, discovery on on the Discovery Channel, and weather on the Weather Channel. I reasoned The Learning Channel had to be brimming with learning, a twenty-four-seven source of insight. Get ready to take a backseat PBS, there's a new sheriff in town.

When I actually watched the thing, I was confused. Where's the learning? At first I was disappointed; then I was disgusted. If memory serves, they were pioneers. Who polluted their signal with the vacuous, salacious, hyperbolic waste of time known as Reality TV before them? My philosophical model suggests we pay a price for our participation. It's simply quantum physics. The observer changes the observed. The passive act creates real ripples in the universe viewers are accountable for.

Now The Learning Channel has changed to TLC and The Weather Channel has fallen in lockstep with a slew of yellow-television, muck for the masses. Truckers and fishermen? Somewhere out there is a cargo-ship, filling with my obscenities each time I tune in and find no weather. They should change their name too. How about Weather Related Reality TV or maybe just Weather Sometimes. And when it comes to those other channels, don't get me started. How much historical depth can be found in a pawn shop?

Want real history? Try the History Detectives on PBS. Want to discover something new and cool about the reality you inhabit? Try Nova or Nature. Want real weather? Well that's where PBS fails (it's like their not even trying). But if you want to learn about what's really important, Frontline is my favorite.

I wish there was a law that said, if you're going to call yourself a name that has a certain meaning, you have an obligation to create programing in line with the implications of your name. It's no more than truth in advertising.