The Titanic Channel (2016-2018 documentary series)

REPOST since I realized this would fit the Found Media section better - originally in Lost Media but since I've been recovering much of the series, it's definitely not completely lost.

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Ok, this is my first post but this is one of the rare times something I personally had full access to just disappeared wholesale.

In 2016, a $5/month subscription service called "The Titanic Channel" debuted at the domain TitanicChannel.tv, featuring in-depth interviews and mini-documentaries about the RMS Titanic, featuring renowned historians and experts. Some of these experts included Ken Marschall (painter and historical consultant for the 1997 film), Mark Chirnside (author of several popular books about historic ocean liners), Charles Haas (author of Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy) and Senan Molony (a rather controversial figure in the Titanic community, as he was responsible for the "Fire and Ice" theory that was in the news a few years back).

I subscribed to Titanic Channel on and off from 2017 onwards and greatly enjoyed the service, but in 2018, however (right when I had actually renewed by subscription for another month), it was announced that the service would be discontinued. In fact, I have my original cancellation email:

After this, as said in the email, the content continued to be available on other platforms but with some caveats and other issues.

XUMO, a free streaming site, probably had the most episodes saved from what I remember, but unfortunately it has since been removed entirely from this site (a shame, since I recall using XUMO to watch the episodes after the service's discontinuation).

VUDU still has the series listed, but it is unavailable.

There is still an Amazon Prime Channel, but they only have five of the many other hosts (IMDb lists 12 hosts in the cast, but I recall there being several more who were special guests) and only 6-10 episodes per host (whereas there are several other episodes with these hosts that are not included)

There is also the Audible podcast/audiobook "Titanic Channel Talks" but these are audio-only versions of episodes, and not only does it not have all of them (in fact several of them duplicates of ones on the Prime Channel) but also some episodes that were two parts only have one part. For example, historian Bill Sauder discussing the Titanic's First Class Lounge was two episodes, but the Audible release only includes the second part, and Ken Marschall discussing his friendship with survivor Ruth Becker-Blanchard was two parts but Audible only has the first.

And there was briefly a YouTube channel called "Titanic Channel Archive" that uploaded episodes, but that has since been terminated for copyright. Archive.org only has one capture, from 2020 after the channel had been terminated. So it is possible that whoever ran that YouTube has all the episodes still saved.

According to the site ReelGood, there were 273 episodes produced, but the only place to get all of them (allegedly) is Pantaflix, which is not available in the United States.

Their website, Titanicchannel.tv, is currently down for good, and since it was a subscription service, Archive.org only has the free landing pages.

So where does this leave the series?

Well, aside from the episodes available through Amazon/Audible, there are a few discoveries I've personally made in the last week that I'd like to share.

First, there's one more free TV site that's mirroring several episodes otherwise unavailable, Distro.tv. There's a live channel as well as two VOD libraries: "Ship History" and "Passengers & Crew"

Also, there's the official Titanic Channel YouTube, which for some time uploaded shortened versions of episodes to entice you to subscribe to the service, and then went dark for five years until they suddenly started uploading again 4-5 months ago, this time full episodes, but only seven were uploaded. A comment on the most recent one indicates that they did have plans to make their full catalogue available but this has yet to come to pass: 

Finally, there were four uploads to the YouTube for the in-development video game "Titanic: Honor and Glory" which have since been made unlisted, but I have the links:

Now, what have I been doing to preserve this series? Well, progress is slow BUT I have been screen-recording or downloading as many episodes as I can. I'm going through host by host on Distro.tv, the YouTube links and the Amazon/Audible releases and compiling them together (again, by host) and putting them on Google Drive.

So far I have:

Ken Marschall (mostly from the Prime Channel, but a few from Distro)

Bill Sauder (mostly from his Prime Channel, but also several on Distro, a couple from the Honor & Glory YT, one shortened episode from the official YT, and one audio-only episode from Audible)

Parks Stephenson (mostly from his Prime Channel, but also several on Distro, one from Honor & Glory, another on the official YT)

I'm planning on doing the Mark Chirnside episodes later this week, will update with any news. The reality is, however, that even with these various sources several episodes remain lost (I've yet to go through the full episode listing on ReelGood but I know for certain that I'm missing at least one Ken Marschall episode about the discovery of the Titanic wreck and one Bill Sauder episode about the Titanic's engine telegraphs). The real challenge will be, however, the episodes of hosts that didn't get a Prime Video channel since those I'll probably have to source exclusively from those scattered YT uploads and Distro.tv's library.

UPDATE (02/23/23): Mark Chirnside episodes have been compiled onto Google Drive!

Also, I started uploading them to YouTube as unlisted (out of fear that they may be copyright flagged): www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6jvuV_3Ev6kmpEk2gr4IZn6B7jDVimFF

UPDATE (02/24/23): PH Nargeolet episodes have been compiled - these all come from the Prime channel, since he has no episodes on Distro.tv, Audible, or YouTube, so I have no way of knowing if there's more I'm missing.

Only Senan Molony remains from the hosts available on Prime Video, so from there the preservation gets harder.