Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.
Ah, the Onion – always reliable for a laugh. The link above takes you to a story that’s funny because it’s a little too close to the truth for comfort. Many science shows on TV are incredibly dumbed down…not as bad as the article describes, but I used to think I was just imagining it, until I heard a professor, a guest speaker at my old science writing class describe it as the Shark Week effect.
Apparently somebody figured out how to analyze how long people stayed on the National Geographic and Discovery Channels once they randomly clicked there on TV, and found that on average people lasted 30 seconds. So these channels made a concerted effort to grab people’s attentions in those 30 seconds, at the cost of any actual in-depth science programming. The idea is to show a shark attack (or something equally dramatic) at least once every 30 seconds. And make every week shark week…So Animal Planet gives us something like ‘The Most Extreme Animals’ instead of a nature documentary showing actual animals in the wild. And the ‘Science’ Channel gives us Heavy Metal Task Force.
I guess it’s a tough market, and it’s hard to blame TV shows from wanting to maximize their audience, especially since many of the shows are entertaining. But does science really have to be snuck into TV shows like a bitter medicine pill sandwiched inside a brownie (tasty but intellectual junk-food)? The problem with that is that it doesn’t really expose people to actual science, or get them excited by real research. Do people not have the patience for non-sensationalist science anymore, or is it the quality of programs that’s gotten worse? I’d like to think it’s the latter, and that sufficiently good science shows would be able to keep people’s attentions without sacrificing too much of their focus and depth.
Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, but I’d like to see someone try to make better science shows on TV, something that’s popular without sacrificing the science.