National Geographic show are really 30 minutes

I’ve been meaning to gripe about this, but I’ve been incredibly backlogged. Coincidentally, Gene nailed this topic right on the head:

Just as I thought | Gene Cowan’s weblog

The biggest trick in the book for students is the double-spaced report, the art of making a small amount of content seem like much more.
This has become the standard for National Geographic Channel. Every time I watch a documentary on this channel, I’m struck by how they masterfully pad out a show. The first thing they do is reiterate, reuse, and repeat. The same footage will be used over and over, plot points are repeated several times, and the whole show is edited very long, almost to the point of being uncomfortable to watch — you know something is not edited very tightly when you find yourself wondering when they’ll cut to another camera angle.

Click the link to read more – it’s a very good description. I happen to like shows like Megastructures and Seconds From Disaster, but the bumpers (parts before and after a commercial) are painful to watch. Thank goodness my PVR has a 1-minute fast forward. I swear… a 60 minute show is actually about 30 minutes once you subtract out the ads and duplicated parts.

But… even worse than the National Geographic shows are the Travel Channel shows on Las Vegas. I saw 3 recently – they were basically all the same, just in a different sequence.

Thank goodness for PVRs indeed.