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You really have to wonder about a culture that refers to little girls as "it."

American culture surrounding little girls is so much healthier.

I'm thinking de-sexualization of children (any gender) is probably a better idea.

Thing is, there's a lot of good speciality channels that are hurt by this. Because now instead of subscribers, they have to compete for eyeballs. Which means instead of producing good programming, they have to produce popular programming. Which means what shows were previously just about certain subjects now have to add in "drama" and "conflict" because that stuff gets the eyeballs. (Think lowest common denominator).

Those specialty channels are still part of packages so far. But they've degenerated into a wasteland of reality garbage. Have you looked at the lineup of The Learning Channel lately? I dare you to justify those shows as educational or informational in any way. Pretty much all the the Discovery channel shows are junk not; as are those on the other channels owned by discovery. The Science Fiction channel is now Syfy and produces Sharknado and ECW wrestling instead of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG1. And you can't even make the joke that the History Channel should really be called the Hitler Channel anymore... not unless the Ice Road Truckers are really searching for a secret outpost of the Third Reich up in northern Canada.

Basically, the bleak future you describe is already here. So why not go ahead and decouple the packages and put those channels out of our misery?

No that's TLC.

You mean like this one?
http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/ex...

no kharma coming my way for such a brief post, but this is old news. i saw a news brief on this in some TLC program months ago.

gotta have some cynical posts if i want to be a "true" /.er ;-p

Actually, if you've watched some of the military episodes on TLC or The Discovery Channel about miltary training, you can gain some good insight into the programs without actually doing any investigation (other than watching the shows). They provide very little commentary and just show what is going on. They do some interviews (sole interviews, the person is simply talking to the camera, no one is asking questions directly), but mainly show the process by which personnel go through in certain areas of the military. They have done documentaries on Rangers, SEALs, AF recruits, Navy recruits, and specific Marine episodes. Many of the sterotypes that you see in the movies are fairly true. Mind you that these episodes don't cover ALL of the training, they do try to cover a decent portion of the trainings. There have even been several connected episodes in which the documentary will follow a specific class all the way from their initial inductions to their final graduations/acceptances/etc.

It is obvious though that a trainer will not be screaming into a trainee's ear while they are trying to learn a specific skill, how to use some new equipment, or other similar procedures. The screaming is counterproductive as you mentioned, but the trainees would be harshly dealt with should they fail some training at certain points.

Really, this isn't special knowledge. If you've taken an anthropology course you've seen nekkid dark-skinned pre-teens.