WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN???

[tencrush]

I WISH TO GOD I could find a picture of it on the internets, but I can't at the moment. There's an ad campaign running in bus stops in Holland at the moment for the Discovery Channel. It features a man with a woman's eyes photoshopped onto his fayce. It says underneath: Discovery Channel - Niet Bestemd voor Vrouwenogen (not meant for women's eyes).

I did a bit of a double take, I have to admit. Now first of all, I have to explain that I only recently started watching Dicovery Channel again when I got a new cable package. MYTHBUSTERS YAY!! I recall dipping back into it and remarking on occasion that there seemed to suddenly be an awful lot of shows about motorcycles and women tattooing each other. But I never really gave it much more thought than that. And then this ad showed up and I remembered the thing about the motorcycles, so I had a bit of a squizz on the internet and according to the dutch press release about the campaign, Discovery Channel Netherlands is Holland's Number One Men's Channel, which, a few years ago took the bold step of targeting itself exclusively at the male market. The incredibly heterosexual blowing-things-up-tattooed-women-and-motorcycles market.

I'M SORRY, BUT WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? WHEN DID THIS MEETING OCCUR? I realise I'm probably INCREDIBLY BEHIND THE TIMES here, but WHAT????

I did a bit more research and I couldn't really find out anything more about this new target audience of what to me, a few years ago anyway, was an interesting educational channel with skience and shit. For EVERYBODY. And, above all, I couldn't find out if this retargeting was a global thing, or just something to do with Discovery Holland. Their website is INCREDIBLY masculine looking, but despite the enthused tones of the press release, I don't see any words on any of their sites, even the dutch one, claiming that it's a blokes' channel. For blokes.

What's going on?

Can I blame Richard Hammond for all this? The whole science=blowingstuffup=blokes shit? I somehow think I should be.

Comments

[jo02]

Richard Hammond? Do you mean Jeremy Clarkeson? Some people say . . .

[taversham]

I haven't seen any of the Dutch Discovery Channel (unsurprisingly), but if it's anything like the promotion they did for Dave (...and Yorkie bars) here, then men aren't their sole target audience. Just if they say it's only for men, then men go "rawr, manly telly for us!" and watch it smugly, and women go "oi, we can enjoy this shit too" and watch it to be feminist-y. (Targeting things explicitly only at women interestingly tends to have the opposite effect, the women say "don't patronise us" and the guys go "eww, girly".)

So then they can show lots of motorbike-y/tattoo-y crap, which is very cheap to produce, because it fits with their image and if anyone complains then they're not a man. And if they are actually not a man, then they shouldn't have been watching in the first place because it's not for them.

It's a complete win, marketing-wise. I don't really understand why a channel which already has such a well-known niche as The Discovery Channel would have to resort to it, but don't blame poor little Hammond, blame the ad-men.

[flohkatie.livejournal.com]

Do you mean this one? But I can't explain anything, anyway.

(http://img339.imageshack.us/i/discovery1.jpg/)

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

Those are a woman's eyes? I can't tell.

[tencrush]

Yah, that too. They just look like bigger eyes. You have to get really close to the picture to see that they're a woman's eyes.

It confuses me on many levels.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'It confuses me on many levels.'
Same here! What really confuses me is that they seem to think only men like explosions and the like. Guess I'll have to get rid of all my MythBuster boxsets because I'm not supposed to like that stuff.

[tencrush]

THAT'S THE ONE! Well, no, actually, it's not the one hanging around Amsterdam, that's a different guy, but that's the campaign, yeah. Aside from creeping me out somewhat, I just don't get when Discovery became a guy's channel.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Women don't buy as much expensive crap, we spend our money on the family and Oppressive Beauty Products.

[meleth.livejournal.com]

It's true that the number of explosions per unit of Discovery Channel programming seems to have gone up in recent years.

[torenheksje.livejournal.com]

But as far as I'm concerned, that's a GOOD thing. :cD

[meleth.livejournal.com]

Ngl, sometimes when I'm watching Mythbusters, I get slightly angry at the amount of water and other useful, potentially consumable things they blow up.

[tencrush]

But there's nothing specifically saying it's a men's channel, is there? Because that's what the campaign seems to be promoting. It's only just started and there's interviews and blurbs coming out now that are a bit weird. I'll post some later.

[meleth.livejournal.com]

No, it's not Spike TV or anything. Nor have I seen any such ad campaigns here in the US.

[jamesie-boy.livejournal.com]

It says underneath: Discovery Channel - Niet Bestemd voor Vrouwenogen (not meant for women's eyes).

um, well. fuck you, discovery channel netherlands.

[tencrush]

Yeah, that was kind of my reaction, too. There was a statement that made it just a little bit worse. I'll post it later.