Travel Channel
 

I was reading the thread about Rick Steves, and I noticed a side comment someone made that had me nodding in agreement - the decline of The Travel Channel. What has happened to this formerly fun and interesting cable station? Most of the time seems to be filled with the World Poker Tour, and the small amount of non-WPT programming is mostly about Las Vegas. Now I know some people (like my soupse) do like to watch poker on TV, but it's not a travel show - except for the 10-second blurb about where it's being held - so put it somewhere else please! And if the folks at the Travel Channel are listening - Las Vegas is nice too but there's a lot more world out there that viewers might like to hear about. OTT the same thing seems to be happening over at the History Channel - come on guys, there's a lot more to history than just World War II.

OK, rant over. thanks for listengin.

I think I remember reading that the Travel Channel had been bought by the Discovery Channel. I agree that the TC is not nearly as good as it was, but neither is the DC. Too bad.

Couldn't agree more! I remember when I used to highlight the shows each week that I wanted to see--from Rick Steves to Lonely Planet to "Up Close" looks at different European cities.

Now, at my house, we no longer call it the Travel Channel, we call it "all Vegas all the time."

Daisy, are you a mind-reader? I saw that note too in the other thread and I was going to post this very same issue. Thanks for doing it for me!! :-)

I used to so look forward to the Lonely Planet, Alby Mangels, and all of the other great shows they had. Now, if I have to watch another show about haunted hotels, I think I will scream. (out of anger, not fear!!) As for poker, I love to play, but what can be more boring than watching others play any card game? zzzzzzzz.......

I consider myself lucky. With 3 PBS TV stations in my area, I get plenty of travel shows including: Rick Steves, Rudy Maxa, Globe Trekker (formerly LP), Conde Nast Traveler, Passport to Adventure, Burt Wolf, and Weekend Explorer.
Who needs Travel Channel?

I mentioned this same topic to my spouse last evening. There's nothing at all worth watching on the Travel Channel. According to TC playing Poker and going to LV is all there is to modern travel.

Ditto about the History Channel - every foot of film ever taken during WW II has been shown so many times it's a wonder it hasn't been worn out - funny thing no matter how many times they do show it the outcome is still the same.

I'd say that I would have to agree. I just got a new cable system and was excited to see that the Travel Channel would be part of the new package. So far, I have found it very disappointing.

I don't think I really need to see shows on Las Vegas 24/7. Maybe there really are that many gambling addicts out there that watch this netowrk (or maybe the Las Vegas resorts buy up all the advertising and therefore have a say in the content of the programming).

It's become so frequent that almost any time of day or night you can see shows about Vegas especially the poker tournaments. Once in a while-I guess when they run out of Vegas stuff-they show haunted hotels and another great topic: monster trucks although not so much nowadays. I wish they'd have shows about Europe or just travel!

Like the Bravo Channel, that used to have lots of foreign films, the Travel Channel is but a sad shadow of its former self!

We changed from cable to the Dish because I wanted the Travel Channel and the History Channel. And now I rarely watch Travel and never History. Does anyone remember that French guy who used to travel the Caribbean islands on his own small boat? The guy with the unkempt hair? I loved watching him on Saturday mornings.

PM - so you enjoyed watching Alby Mangels on the 'old' Travel Channel as well. Haven't thought about his program in years, but it was informative and entertaining at the same time. Wonder what ever became of him.

Francophile03

What you are asking for is exactly what the TC used to be and why we are lamenting the disgusting decline of that channel. A typical morning might have one-hour shows on Germany, Argentina, Alaska, London. I taped several of them.
They also had a great travel show with Peter Greenberg that had some great travel tips and videos.

I am still upset over the idiots who changed the format. I would like to paraphrase Jamie Lee Curtis' line from A Fish Called Wanda " To call them stupid would be an insult to stupid people!"

Debs, I was going to look up Alby Mangels to get some info, and it led me down another path. Friends, if you will please go to www.albymangels.com, you will see a link that says "Contact the Travel Channel and request that 'Adventure Bound' be brought back." Of course, you can use that link to tell them anything you want. Maybe if we Fodorites band together they will listen. I hope you will all make your opinions known to the new owners of the Travel Channel. Thanks for giving me the idea, Deb!! Also, rj007, thanks for reminding me of the funniest line in that movie. :-)

PS This link might also work.
http://extweb.discovery.com/ViewerRelations

I sent an email to the Travel Channel several months ago, but got a generic email response from them. I wonder if there's a better way for us to all complain to them!

P_M

That was a great movie. Also, the same cast made another good movie "Fierce Creatures" which is very funny. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the link to Alby Mangels. I always enjoyed his shows.

provence97 - I agree. I wish there was some way we could get them to change it. I don't even waste time watching it anymore.

The TC seems to be oblivious as to what many viewers want to see.

And just how many times are they going to replay Loretta Lynn's Haunted Plantation?

When they got to the point of putting out the "10 best bathrooms in Vegas" I knew there was no turning back to quality travel programming!

MelJ

I think that show you mentioned sums up the "quality" of their programming.

The TC figured out they can bring in more revenue by advertising American hotels and resorts in their programing. A small vacation spot in Argentina doesn't pay the bills.

We recently got a new cable lineup with Travel Channel and the Food Network. I have seen more travel information on the Food Network than TC!

Fine Living channel. Not all travel, but some pretty good shows. Not the old TC, but it's not bad.

For those of you with dishes, is it possible for you to pick up the UK Travel Channel (www.travelchannel.co.uk)? It really is all travel, all the time.
I'm watching it right now (a show on Amsterdam). A fair number of repeats, of course, but there is a lot of variety and it really does show nothing but travel, travel, travel (and I haven't seen yet a single show about Las Vegas!).
FYI, according to www.travelchannel.co.uk, if you have a broadband internet connection, you can watch more than 70 different travel videos from their web site...
It was really sad to hear this news about the US Travel Channel. Sounds like a good topic for an article in one of the travel magazines...

Thanks for the info on the UK travel channel.

I especially miss Lonely Planet.

Hi
I saw the UK Travel Channel in Rome, what a breath of fresh air from 10 best toilets in LV.

My favorite is Rudy Maxa but he hasn't been on lately. His show usually was before Rick Steves on a Sunday morning here.

All the great non-travel programming you see on the "Travel Channel" is probably the result of intense "market research" by some brain-dead consulting firm, spoon-fed to incompetent management who just eat up this worthless advice because they don't have any ideas of their own. I'm hoping a competitor launches a competing channel. In the meantime, if we all ignore the "Travel Channel", maybe it'll go away.

The only times we get to view Rudy Maxa's programs are when PBS has them. We were lucky two weekends ago as there was a marathon due to the PBS fundraising. Of course Rick Steves was on prior to that and had a marathon run of his shows.

Rudy Maxa is my favorite travel show too. He's on our local PBS station and he's also on Fine Living through our satellite system. I'm beginning to think I've seen all of them more than once.

I watched Rudy Maxa's show on Venice on the Fine Living Channel last night. One thing I keep wondering about is why he referred to as being a "Pulitzer Prize" nominee? Seems strange to mention the prize unless you've won it. Sort of like putting M.A. or M.S. after your name.

Contacted the Travel Channel about bringing back Alby Mangels Adventure Bound Series - response was they have no plans to reair the Bound for Adventure series ! Too bad !

Debs, that stinks that they are so uncaring, but it doesn't really surprise me. I still hope more people will contact them and let them know what we think of thier format.

I agree with the comment about the show "Best bathrooms in Vegas." That's really sinking to a new low.

Speaking of the Food Channel, whatever happened to that show they had with Molto Mario traipsing through Italy teaching the Italians how to cook? It was one of my all-time favorites. He used to spend half the show teaching us how wine, olive oil or prosciutto was made, then the other half teaching or learning how to incorporate those products in recipes. The scenery was beautiful. That show was what convinced me to finally take a break from Northern Europe and check out Italy.

I think Mario has another show now. I know the show you're referring to; Mario never seemed to change out of the same shirt, shorts, and orange clogs. But they went to really nice places like Amalfi...

FoodTV still plays some episodes of Mario Eats Italy -- the one on Naples pizza is being shown on Sunday, 3/27 at 4:30 a.m. I'm going to record it. Here's the link to the show's site:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_it