New Discovery Channel chief Rich Ross (no relation to Rick) has vowed to stop airing pseudoscientific bullshit on what is ostensibly an educational channel. Ross made this promise at the Television Critic’s Association press tour earlier today, telling the skeptical crowd, “I don’t think [fake documentaries are] right for Discovery Channel, and think it’s something that has run its course.”


This includes cryptozoological nonsense like Mermaids: The Body Found, Mermaids: The New Evidence, and the presumed (and now presumably canceled) threequel Mermaids: Pretty Crazy, Right?, as well as the prehistoric shark “documentaries” Megalodon: The Giant Shark Lives and Megalodon: The New Evidence. It also includes Discovery’s disastrous Eaten Alive special, about which Ross said, “I don’t believe you’ll see a person being eaten by a snake in my time – I can’t over-promise that, but that’s how I feel today.” In other words, we’ll see how Ross feels tomorrow, or whenever he gets the ratings result of his experiment in not making things up.