:sicko-pirate:

it’s a well worn bit, but i remember TLC before it was acquired by Discovery Channel in the 1990s, when it was called The Learning Channel in the 1980s and focused almost exclusively on educational/instructional content.

The channel mostly featured documentary content pertaining to nature, science, history, current events, medicine, technology, cooking, home improvement, and other information-based topics. These are often agreed to have been more focused, more technical, and of a more academic nature than the content that was being broadcast at the time on its eventual rival, The Discovery Channel, which launched in 1985. The Learning Channel was geared toward an inquisitive and narrow audience during this time, and had modest ratings. An exception to this viewership commonality was Captain’s Log (produced and hosted by Mark Graves, a.k.a. Captain Mark Gray), a weekly primetime boating safety series that aired from 1987 to 1990.

it’s even more depressing to go back further and see that the channel was literally started with federal funding through the Appalachian Regional Commission…

TLC’s history traces to the 1972 formation of the Appalachian Educational Satellite Project (AESP), a distance education project formed by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), in participation with the Education Satellite Communication Demonstration (ESCD), a partnership with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and NASA intended to transmit instructional, career and health programming via satellite to provide televised educational material to public schools and universities in the Appalachian region. ARC submitted a proposal to participate in the ESCD and use the ATS-6 communications satellite (launched into orbit in 1974) to disseminate “career education” programming to teachers at no cost; the consortium set up 15 earth station receiver sites across eight states in conjunction with local education service agencies.

it’s during the 80s when it was, as many things ARC funded and controlled, cheaply turned over to a private for-profit corporation that could dress it up as an asset for its major competitor to buyout and turn into a giant piece of shit, which would go on to make Honey Boo Boo and Mama June household names.

from the lofty goals of improving the lives of underserved communities to profiting from those same communities immiseration, this is the story arc of every ARC project.

All of the IP law, corporate ownership bullshit is so stupid. There is no reason for “lost” albums, shows, episodes, seasons, etc. It’s so lame that artists make all sorts of things but they aren’t the ones in control of how it’s its released or distributed. A “lost” project is almost always some behind the scenes nonsesnse with the studio rather than the artist/producers not wanting to release something. It’s even more lame that MEGACORPS can just throw entire projects in the dumpster but still seat on the “rights” until “market conditions” make it favorable for them to something with them. So many of thse shows are going to be thrown into the digital shadow realm, where you won’t find any record of them on any “offical” channels.

They purge almost all reference to these shows just kinda cuz they can. Digital Piracy is the closest thing we have to digital preservation of media, and that’s yet another reason as to why Piracy is almost a must in the current age.

It’s just so lame that producers of things have zero ownership of things. Animation is also super labor intensive and requires a lot of special skills and developed talents, and these studios just want to copy-paste derivatives of Rick and Morty or Family Guy art-style. Art/Media under capitalism sucks so much.