I read an article today about the president of the channel formerly known as The History Channel. Now it is titled History (no channel) and has the slogan "History is Made Everyday" which allows it to pass off any show as pertaining to history regardless of the setting / subject. Pretty interesting.
It’s the work of Susan Dubac, installed three years ago as network chief. Her policy is to make the shows more appealing to the most appealing demographic so that it receives more advertising revenue. So far her approach has been successful. The money is rolling in. And if you’re wondering how it was that each of the quality, educational channels have come to resemble a marathon of "Behind the Music" you should understand that young whizzes like Ms. Dubac are in command and making makeovers. She is determined to excise the elements that earned it the nickname "The Hitler Channel" and yet lacks the imagination and humor to come up with something like "Youtube Hitler." The result is a lot of fluff that wouldn’t earn a place in Wikipedia but is given the "Real World" treatment of odd camera angles and other modern techniques such as "being loud." How loud? Well, on par with the volume of commercials. And thus, the viewer cannot distinguish between the programming and the ads. That’s good for business.
