What's with the "Travel" Channel?
 

I know it's been posted on here numerous times, but this channel seems to sink lower and lower every week. There is NOTHING of any interest on there anymore. Last night they were televising poker games and tractor pulls!!! The Food and History Channels have better travelogues. Our PBS station runs Rick Steves once a week and even these reruns beat anything on the Travel Channel.

When I first found TC about 5 years ago, it featured old PBS and Lonely Planet videos. They were worth watching. Now there's nothing.

Maybe Fodors or Arthur Frommer should find a way to produce something to do with travel on there. I'd setlle for old Gunther Less shows from the 1960's at this point.

Travel channel is a waste of time,Zeus. I couldn't send a reply on their web page to ask them to give us something related to travel. The poker, Las vegas infromation, and the truck and trailer pulls are not of interest to most travlers.
How do we contact them?
Del

Very Funny, My wife and I had this exact conversation last night. Once in awhile that Top 10 show is interesting but that is it. They don't cater to the type of travel that we do at all. I suspect that most of their advertising dollars come from Vegas Casinos so the majority of the programming focuses on Vegas. I would love to see a Travelogue Based Network hit the airwaves.

Good thing this was posted, I was going to subscribe to it..Maybe I should wait!!

Tracy, save your money. It is almost uncommon to see anything very worthwhile on the Travel Channel. For people into Vegas and cruises, I suppose it's great. To tell you the truth, I think the Food Channel has more interesting travel features, although they are obviously incidental to the "main course" there ;). I agree with those who applaud PBS for some of their programming related to travel.

Ditto, ditto, and ditto!

All true, but have you watched the poker? Welcome to Neptune. =:)

Last night we saw an interesting hour long show on the new Renaissance ? mega-cruise ship. It was on CNBC. Perhaps they have more shows like this on Saturdays-9 pm PT

Saw one show on Greece last week but the rest is just the Las Vegas network. Last year they had quite a few shows on Italy, France, Greece, etc. When I saw the Tractor pull was on I told "Ma" to hitch up the wagon soes we could go fer a hayride. Yee Haa!
Maybe they'll start covering the greased pig contest next.

Dont get thet chanel meself. Maybee they is thinkin that most 'mericens are travelin close to home this yer.

Sorry I am just thinking of the tv business and the lowest common denominator theory.

Greased pig chases could be amusing though. We do not have them around here.

The Fine Living Channel has some great travel shows. I just saw one about the Italian Riveria. I agree the travel channel is garbage. It is really for people that need to know the top ten beaches of every category, and vegas junkies who can't be there but just want to watch. It is truely worse than ever the "E" channel has better travel shows ("Wild On")

The Lineup on "TC" tonight consist of:
"Donut Crazy" A wacky look at that overly sweet, painfully heavy bread that fat-ass american love to eat
"World's Best" Ten spots to do what all vegas loving mindless travelers love to do...Eat to Much
"World's Best" A tour a food factories, Hostess DingDong Factory is my guess.

RIDICULOUS

They really do have the dumbest shows. "Worlds Greatest Vacation Homes" !! - who gives a @!#$. I keep turning it on thinking one day, one time there will be a legitmate show about Travel, but nope. Just Great hotels, beaches, vegas, things people do in vegas, security in vegas, cars people drive in vegas, biggest shopping malls in vegas, Shows in vegas, and sometimes cruises.- Man if you could take a cruise to vegas Travel Channel could fill a years worth of material in one trip. I need to start training myself to stop turning it on. How about "top 10 Dumbest shows on Travel Channel"

The Weather Channel has some interesting features, occasionally. We just finished watching a program about Belize. It is strictly hit or miss, as the info on programming isn't listed in our newspaper, but it's an improvement on the TC. Maybe someone knows how to access the program list for the Weather Channel. Sometimes, even watching the weather forcasts are better than regular TV. M

The "Travel" Channel drives me nuts. There's less of a chance of me seeing anything on that channel that I could relate to travel than Food TV or almost any other channel. Horrible.

Top 10 Celebrity Homes?? I didn't know we were allowed to stop by. I'll bring my monster truck, a box of doughnuts and pack of playing cards.

Honestly though, it seems their programming is mostly wrapped around the "10 most extravagant hotels", "10 most exclusive spas", "10 strangest homes", etc. I don't think they are really even addressing their programming to USA travel as much as they're providing travel voyeurism.

What percentage of viewers are really going to go to one of the 10 most expensive resorts in the world? It's really turned into an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, along the lines of paparrazzi television, geared to people who think travel is fantasy, along with the idea of dripping in jewels when they win the lottery. Almost seems anti-travel to me or at least promotes the idea that only the wealthy can travel. Much to the further harm to the industry.

Zeus, you're right, I agree the Travel Channel doesn't cover anything interesting. Once they had a feature about the world's greatest pools. Very dull.

wow, I am so glad I saw this message. I had been thinking about switching from my local cable provider to the the Dish Network, just so I could get the Travel, it looks like it's not worth it.

Thank you for this post.

Watching Michael Palin's show about a trek across the Sahara, it occurred to me that the Vegas Channel would never show this caliber program.

And who is that insufferably perky woman who's always enthralled by the hotels she's paid to visit?

Today: Vegas:VIP homes??

What the heck?

You all must have missed the doughnut special last night...sure, it had little to do with travel, but still entertaining.