Last week’s poll: engineering on television

There isn’t a shortage of engineering-related TV shows, but do they represent the breadth of the discipline? Not so for 61 per cent of those who took part in our poll, which asked if factual TV gives a good representation of the engineering profession.

TV shows such as Megastructures, Impossible Engineering, How its Made and Mega Builders have brought certain – often challenging - elements of the profession into people’s homes, but overall, 27 per cent of Engineer readers believe factual TV is contributing to a poor view of engineering. Only seven per cent of respondents agreed that engineering coverage is informative and accurate, with five per cent opting for ‘none of the above’.

In the debate that followed, Pete D said: “I find most of the programmes superficial but then that’s because we are already interested in the subjects and will often have some/a lot of knowledge about them. However, most people have no interest in the depths of these subjects – and why should we expect them to? Yes, I would like more interesting (to me) programmes, but that’s unlikely on the “popular” channels.”