Top Ten Television Channels Whose Existence Makes No Sense to Me

Posted at 5:00 AM Jun 08, 2009

By Jennifer Mathieu

I was at a party the other night where the hosts revealed to me that they don't have cable and rarely watch television.  Oh really?  Well la di da for you.  I'm a television whore and proud of it.  Yet even I cannot fathom why the following channels are in existence. 

10. The Golf Channel


My father's porn.  The Golf Channel.  Shot after shot of people swinging clubs, putting clubs away, and walking around on a really big lawn.  Even more boring (or amusing, depending on your sense of humor) is the channel's discussion boards on its website, which include threads such as "The problem with the Wies driver and other clubs" and "Golf cart and street legal."  Seriously, if you're that into golf, why not turn off the tube and go knock around some woods in the backyard (or whatever it is that golfers do)?

9. NASA Channel


I'm actually from Houston, so you would think I'd have a little NASA pride.  And I do.  But I don't need a channel to help me care about NASA.  Do we really need "This Week at NASA" airing a million times a day?  Unless the astronauts are in tight shorts and oiled up all sexy like, I don't think so.

8. ESPN Classic

Hey, I've got an easy way to make a television channel!  Let's show old boxing matches and horse races and shit like that!  The work's been done for us, we just need to air the events over and over and over again!  And then at night, after the audience has enjoyed its fifth viewing of the 1961 World Heavyweight Title Bout between two men who are now dead, we can air American Gladiators and some poker championships!  Sounds good?  Great.

7. Oxygen


Tori Spelling's current pimp.  What does this channel show other than Tori's dumb dumb reality shows and five hundred reruns of America's Next Top Model Season Two?  Their trippy station ID?  (See above.)  I've got an idea.  Merge with Lifetime Movie Network and just call yourselves Vagina Television.  Done and done.

6. CSPAN 2 and 3

What they show in Hell.  Interviews with dead authors from 1992.  A special program all about LBJ's daughters.  Footage of the Garfield Memorial for three straight hours with no voice-over narration.  I will acknowledge that at least CSPAN 1 (The Mothership) provides a valuable public service by keeping a camera focused tightly on our lazy and corrupt Congress.  But CSPAN 2 and 3?  That's just painful, folks.