Time Team: the rise and fall of a television phenomenon

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.<p>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."

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

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.