Why a whelk...

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.