As a note to folks, questions on the History Channel fall under the guideline of historiography and are not subject to the 20-year rule.

Hi, no information on the station's initial quality, but you may be interested in this post which discusses the change of mandate

• Is The History Channel losing more and more credibility by persisting with their "Ancient Aliens" series (now in its sixth season)?

You may also find this discussion of the BBC vs American public/commercial broadcasting of interest

• What factors lead to the different broadcast media models in the US and the UK? Specifically, why is PBS (or some other public American network) not on par with the BBC in terms of market share?

These posts have been archived by now, so if you have follow-up questions, ask them here; mention the relevant user's username to notify them