How to make the transition to functional programming?

How did The Discovery Channel and TLC make the change from educational to trash TV?

• Obviously they did this to get a more general low-brow audience, but how did they make the transition and why? Were they bought out and forced to remove all intellectual content from their programming?

• Answer:

  The Internet took over their turf. Back in 1985 when the Discovery Channel launched it was a way of making learning interesting and accessible. The viewer could sit down in front of the Discovery Channel and learn stuff even when they couldn't be bothered reading a large book or didn't have access to one. But today we have the internet which can not only provide education it can do it on demand. If you want to know something about anything then you can find articles and video about it on the internet and watch it whenever you like. The Discovery Channel could no longer say "Just sit back and lets us educate you" because viewers became more proactive. If they wanted to learn about physics and the Discovery Channel was focusing on chemistry they would lose viewers to youtube. So the Discovery Channel had to become more like a regular network with gimmicks and narratives in order to try and hook viewers in and keep them watching.