Yes to everything you said about the history channel. Plus, on top of everything else, the sensationalism and etc means it often is bad history, and even setting aside that, there are frequent gross characterizations and oversimplifications. And popular history doesn't have to be that way. PBS has stellar history programs directed at mass audiences. Secrets of the Dead, Nova, American Experience, Frontline (though it usually is through the lens of some current issue), to say nothing of the legion of historical programs that aren't done under the banner of a series (they had a *great* one on the Roman Baths back in the early part of the 00s)...none of them using that garbage McHistory style, never treating the audience as idiots, and usually being pretty careful with their research and even showcasing some of the debates in scholarship. (And not the this side thinks its REAL, this side thinks its FAKE kind of stuff...more like, if they're talking about a text that gives insight into an ancient culture's view of ABC, they'll talk to professor XYZ, who will say that she thinks the text was meant ironically, and thus must be interpreted differently, and then they'll talk to professor QRS, who thinks it is meant as part of a larger program of establishing the writer's bonafides, and so on).

Of course, I have noticed that PBS has slowly been sliding in a cable-channel like direction in the last few years, but mostly superficially. It's a little disappointing, but they're still miles and miles and miles above the cable shows.