Why Ancient Aliens Is Moving to H2

2/13/2012

This week Ancient Aliens moves to its new home on the H2 network, the History Channel sister station previously known as History International until September 2011. While show partisans attempted to make the most of the move, it clearly is not a step up for television’s most reductive history program. In fact, the move to H2 reveals a few essential truths about Ancient Aliens and the corporations that benefit from promoting the ancient astronaut theory.

First, History officials see Ancient Aliens and its audience as a commodity that can be exploited to further their financial interests. H2 averaged only 196,000 prime time viewers last year according to Broadcasting and Cable magazine, while the History Channel proper reaches a nightly audience ten times as large and is the third most-watched cable channel in the United States as of Feb. 5. Executives reasoned that if even a quarter of Ancient Aliens’ two or three million viewers go with it to H2, the network’s ratings will more than double, increasing exponentially what H2 can charge for commercial time.

Second, the powers that be at History can’t seriously believe in the ancient astronaut theory or they would want to ensure it had the widest possible audience. The obscure H2 station is not the widest possible audience, and their willingness to shed millions of viewers from Ancient Aliens to boost the fortunes of H2 speaks to this.

Of course, at the same time, History has also moved nearly all of its history-based programming to H2, leaving the main History Channel home to the more popular and profitable reality shows like Ice Road Truckers and American Pickers, so I suppose one could say that the network’s executives don’t really believe in history at all, except insofar as it can be used to make money. And that is the real take-home lesson of Ancient Aliens.

23 Comments

Michael A. Williams

2/17/2012 12:58:57 pm

I am an adamant watcher and fan of Ancient Aliens. I do believe in the findings and opinions of the Ancient Alien theories. The government fears any theory or potential fact that might and quite possibly alter all frame of thought relating to our very existence and where we truly may have came from. The goverment has based it's values with God. (hence "In God We Trust") What if men have just been covering the truth all along or there is truly a forgotten civilization? "In God or Aliens Do we Trust"? I hope I may still be able to watch Ancient Aliens new episodes at History.com? Thank you

Michael Allen Williams M.B.A.

theelysium

2/21/2012 03:44:40 am

Aw, but if you believe in God then you believe in aliens since they are the ones that posed as as God and if "In God we trust" is that basis of our country the it's pretty accurate as long as you think "in Aliens we trust"! They are our creators...... :-)

Mike

2/17/2012 03:10:21 pm

everyone I know loves this show. It wouldnt make sense to remove a high rating show from tv! I mean does american idol get a new channel after having great ratings? No. the only thing I could think of is they were forced to remove the show. Maybe too many people we catching on to the truth

heyro

2/24/2012 01:05:11 pm

agreed

Danny

2/17/2012 04:22:36 pm

Since I don't receive H2, looks like no more History Channel for me.

exe

2/18/2012 12:37:50 pm

Same for me. They will lose me as a viewer, as I am not interested in the reality shows.

Joe

2/17/2012 05:09:01 pm

It's too bad Ancient Aliens won't continue on the main channel. Whether or not you believe the theories, the show exposes a lot about ancient cultures and provides a platform to explore history that many people might not know about.

Ronda Poust

2/19/2012 06:18:09 am

No more History channel for me. I watch it for Ancient Aliens, I am not interested in the reality shows. I am not willing to pay more money to DTV for the extra channel.

John

2/21/2012 02:56:07 pm

One of my favorite shows and now I will not be able to view it unless I pay to get extra channels from Dish.
history channel you suck for moving this

Chad

2/23/2012 02:31:37 am

How dumb do u have to be in order to run a network??? Everytime I find a show that I actually like on TV some dipshit exec starts messing with it!!! Either they continually move it all around from different times to different days or they start thinking they know more about how to profuce the show than the guys in the field doing the leg-work and putting it all together or they simply decide to use a show as a platform for their own personal agenda (whatever idiotic goal that may be) only screw it all up!!!!! They must make TV execs take ajn IQ test and evidently if they score low enough they get the thumbs up to be appointed to the position as head of the network!!!

cMEgo

2/25/2012 08:08:25 am

I think Ancient Aliens is a great show, some of the facts they talk about are pretty amazing & make you think that "yes, there must've been ancient aliens".

Ancient Aliens is the only progam left on History that makes me go there. They've gotten really stupid with those swamp logging & picking shows that have nothing to do with history whatsover. They play them over and over and over and over and over and over all freaking day long, GEEZ! OMG History, cant you do better than 2 gay guys going thru peoples junk or a bunch of uneducated idiots with a 3rd grade reading level playing in water killing whatever they find?

GITRPLYR

2/25/2012 04:11:16 pm

Attention History Channel executives, you are making a regretable mistake removing Ancient Aliens and making it harder for it's audience to reach the program. This show is innovative, insightful, and enlightening to those of us with open minds seeking the truth about mankind's existence. Ancient Aliens is my favorite show, and, i know i speak on behalf of many disappointed viewers. Please do not hide this information from a mass audience that needs to learn about it whether they realize now or not.....the future civilization of mankind depends on it....serious !!

jbj

2/26/2012 05:42:18 am

I'm sorry to see them move Ancient Aliens to H2. I really think its a ploy to get more people to move to H2. Even though people like the show I doubt many will pay the extra money to add H2. Shame on you History Channel.

Wolfman

3/2/2012 03:41:09 pm

This is not fare! Such a popular show that sheds truth and light to the world gets moved to another channel. This is bogus, I thought they removed the show from the history channel because I was not aware of this and did not see Ancient Aliens on the schedule. imagine how many people are thinking like I was and not aware of the change. They already lost viewers to the show by moving it from the prime History channel to H2 and will continue to lose viewers because some people have to pay extra $ to get this channel and some don't even offer it to their customers. It's a shame and another set up for failure by you know who!!!

William karis

3/9/2012 03:35:17 pm

I will watch only because i have this channel. I would not pay extra and it's not even in HD.

MrEvil

3/23/2012 12:32:04 pm

Ahhh... I see I have to upgrade my Cable service to Digital Plus in order to get H2. Goodbye TimeWarnerCable. I'll just wait and watch it online or download it. The History Channel execs screwed up moving this awesome show to H2.

I have to wonder how much had to do with getting more subscribers (money) to making it more difficult to tune in to the Ancient Astronaut Theories to a lesser watched channel in order to hide something.

Perhaps there's more to all of this when you take in Obama's Exective Order and Laws essential putting the US under Martial Law minus the tanks driving through the streets.

It is 2012 after all and one start's to wonder.......

4/17/2013 06:44:00 pm

Move it back you money hungry Zionist bastards !

Inane Rambler

10/25/2013 05:08:46 pm

I wouldn't mind Ancient Aliens as much if they at least spent some time questioning the premise.

However Giorgios is the producer of the show, and he sure isn't going to spend time allowing that, now is he?

tastiecookies

10/29/2013 05:37:54 pm

these network execs are just plain and simple greedy. i love ancient aliens and it has become one of my favorite shows and if they wanna play hard ball and move it to their new channel so people have to upgrade their programming packages for more money i will just turn around and watch it on the internet and not even bother watching the channel at all. up yours history channel. theres more than one way to skin a cat......

exhistoryfan

11/11/2013 06:09:05 am

It shouldn't even be called the "History Channel" anymore. The vast majority of the shows they air are about current lifestyles. What exactly is historical about Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers or Swamp People? History used to be the only cable channel with anything interesting on. Now it's just another reality network. Very disappointing.

steve

8/18/2014 01:46:49 pm

What exactly is historical about Ancient Aliens?

fay

3/26/2015 05:39:10 pm

What is historical about Ancient Aliens is that they do not limit themselves to the simplistic idea that our ancestors were all having the same hallucinations believing in beings from out of this world [gods]. We are made to think that past civilizations were so ignorant as to imagine things and believe they were true. I refuse to believe that the civilizations that came up with the basis of all our knowledge would waste their own time doing so. Besides, our "knowledge" of history is no more than bits of information put together to fit a theory of what happened in the past. No one knows for sure if that theory is positively representative of what took place in the past, or if it captures the entirety of the history of humanity.

Doug in SF

3/27/2015 08:51:37 am

Ancient Aliens is moving back to History Channel.

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