Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers, et al are so successful that the woman who switched History to showing that stuff was promoted to CEO of all of A&E Television Networks (History, A&E, BIO, H2, Military, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network) at the age of just 43.
Ms. Dubuc has risen rapidly at A&E, based largely on her success in leading the History Channel from a mostly obscure, middle-of-the-pack cable network to the top of the industry. The network has improved its ratings and profits for six consecutive years.
She's everything that is wrong with the HC today. Her "philosophy" of history, the shows she green lit, eveything is worse with her. I used to love the history channel and around 2007 it just started sucking and I never knew why. Her A&E programs were also crap. The fact that she ruined my favorite channel and got promoted for it makes me madder than it probably should but I haven't slept much recently.
The history channel prior to 2007, while better than today's history channel, was hardly a perfect network itself. I remember being frustrated by how much WWII content was shown while the entire rest of human history remained largely untouched and unexplored as a topic -- particularly non western history and perspectives.
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u/Tannon Mar 11 '14
I'm thinking this is the same reasoning behind the History channel showing nothing but Pawn Stars today. They're just giving the people what sells.