Why are TV history programmes so popular?

[LouBoo]

I find this an intriguing question... any thoughts greatly appreciated. x

[Octavius]

Because everything about us, our lives, our heritage and our world and what has shaped those things is interesting. People are always fascinated by the past whether it be looking into their own genealogy, the history of their town, a famous person from history or even dinosaurs and geological evolution.

[vehelpfulguy]

Not sure if you mean history documentaries, or history dramas, or both.

I do think it is partly an age thing. When you are a young person you mainly think and worry about today, or that evening, or the coming weekend.

But as you get older you start to look wider, and you realise that a lot of what happened in history effects the way we live today.

Why are we not a catholic country when France and Italy are (and we were).

How did the first and second world war start.

Why was Britain so powerful in the Victorian era.

Why was Hadrians wall built, or Stonehenge, or Carnaveon Castle.

Why did Guy Fawkes try to blow up parliament.

Why was Charles 1st beheaded.

Why did we have a civil war ?

Questions like that just get you so interested in history.

[Lonnie]

Apart from all the things mentioned above, you learn from history.

[kendo2]

A survey recently claimed that the history channel has a dated viewer age of 50+years.Our nation is top heavey with elderly people.Therefore mainly retired with more time to watch these programes.(Yet less time to get the answers.!!) Also reliving their lives with modern history ie 2nd worl war programes/early space travel/corenation 1953 etc

[jno]

top heavy with elderly people? I wish. This elderly person is heavy solely around the middle. Here's an age distribution chart. About 65% are aged 16 to 64.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=272

[Catso]

Lots of reasons, probably, as mentioned above. However, I'd like to add another; I didn't think of it, I read it somewhere, in a novel I think, but there's a lot of truth in it.
"With the present uncertain and the future unknown, we take refuge in the past"
I think we (the nation) are becoming more interested in the past because we're not very happy with the present and don't see much of a future!

[squiperly]

I think it's simply because most of the progs on TV nowadays are so formulaic and predictable, you only have to watch the first 5 minutes to know how it's going to go. The history programmes tell about life as it really happened (to the best of our knowledge) and so we can identify better with the people who lived through those times. Even if we already know the general outline of the story, it's fascinating to learn how it all unfolded and what people's reactions were.