

Time Team: the rise and fall of a television phenomenon - nekojima
http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/time-team-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-television-phenomenon.htm

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timthorn
Time Team is the only example I'm aware of where proper scholarly research was
created as a by product of popular television on a regular basis.

As the article states, "It is to the Channel’s credit that it did this [pump
£4M into British archaeology]] despite much of that outlay being channelled
into post-excavation work that never appeared onscreen."

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nekojima
As well as the 225 scholarly reports, plus additional articles, on the dig
sites. They exceeded almost all universities and archaeology units in the UK
on an individual institution basis for output and quality of work. It may have
been a TV series, but the folks doing the work were serious archaeologists who
did real work, making a real contribution.

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pknight
To me it feels like a case of a network sabotaging its own show. Step 1: be
incredibly inconsistent with air times and play around with dates, step 2:
dumb the program to capture a larger audience by making sweeping changes,
introducing younger presenters and disturbing a well-oiled team that people
have come to love, step 3: ax show when ratings fail to climb because bogus
strategy didn't work.

A terrible loss for archeology, not just in the UK. Twenty seasons is a
massive achievement though.

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nekojima
The technical advances used in archaeology illustrated over the past twenty
years of this program have been phenomenal. While a trowel is still mandatory,
the use of geophysics technology has advanced and assisted in fieldwork in so
many ways. Highlighted by Time Team, its a shame to see that this won't be as
public anymore to such a wide audience.

