I think it has a lot to do with the type of people who binge watch cable TV these days. The majority of younger people and more tech savvy people (and both of those groups tending to be more media literate people) have moved to Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO, etc. They don’t watch the travel channel or the history channel anymore. It’s kind of like the facebook-ification of cable content to keep viewers coming back and it seems there’s a subset of American boomers who will eagerly consume conspiracy content.

It's definitely this. I'm an old millenial which is why I still like TV but you're running into content making fun of this stuff if youre watching HBO, etc. Though, both Hulu and YouTube TV carry these channels and shows I'm talking about.

Anecdotally but don’t write off the younger generation. I was teaching 6th grade social studies a few years ago.

Flat earth, ancient aliens, and other conspiracy theories are in their mindshare.

YouTube was their medium.

I think you nailed it for the cable tv audience though.