Why Animal Planet Sucks

I love animals but I hate Animal Planet, one of Discovery Channel's stable of cable networks. I did like it in its early days but about 2006 it nose-dived in quality in order to gain more viewers. Unfortunately, these viewers seeem to enjoy long, excrutiating details about eiother animal abuse or a human being attacked by an animal.

A Very Brief History of Animal Planet

Animal Planet started humbly in 1996, being one of the first offspring from the incredibly innovative Discovery Channel. It was only on from nine in the morning to midnight, and then stretched to three in the morning. The rest of the time was taken up by infomercials. Although standard on most cable packages, there was a time in thelate 1990s when it was extremely difficult to get.

Now, Animal Planet shows programming twenty-four hours a day, every day. This is especially appreciated by night owls, insomniacs and graveyard shift workers. However, this continuation in programming has come at a price constant reruns, even more constant commercial breaks and a distict lack of quality programs.

The Basis For Comparison

When Animal Planet started, it often showed old BBC documentaries as well as some original shows like "Planet's Funniest Animals". Now, they are half original shows, part Discovery left-overs and rarely show any BBC documentaries. Some of the programs have been truly innovative, like "Meerkat Manor," or unintentionally hysterical like the "Puppy Bowl" series.

But then about 2006, the programming drastically changed along with their slogan. It used to be "Same planet, different world" and now it's "Suprisingly human." Series such as "When Nature Attacks" or "I Shouldn't Be Alive" promote the idea that the natural world and animals are somehow evil. Series such as "Animal Cops" and "Animal Hoarders" merely showcase animal abuse. Many animal lovers hate seeing animal abuse in their liesure time, so who are left to watch these shows? Perhaps animal abusers, taking notes? Animal Planet even promoted the notoriously cruel "sport" of thoroughbred horse racing with the reality series "Jockeys." Animal Planet is almost pornographic in its display of mangled, starved, beaten and broken animals.

The Basis For Comparison

Perhaps I grew up in a different time and mind-set in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then, watching animal programs was a rare treat. They were usually on PBS (except for rare gems like NBC's "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom"), usually on Sunday nights and occasionally in reruns around dinnertime. You had no idea of knowing what animal was going to be presented until you watched the show.

And then you had fifty-four minutes of uninterrupted nature documentary bliss.

Animal Planet was great when it started, but now seriously sucks. It has lost its original vision and its original audience. In order to see what Animal Planet used to be like, watch National Geographic Channel Wild (NatGeoWild.)