It's Not Rocket Science

Just reminds me of the ITV version of "How Do They Do That?" which, ultimately was an adult version of How!/How2!

Why not just bring back Brainiac?

1) Hammond probably thinks Sky is way beneath him now.
2) Vic Reeves steered it into an arguable farce that I think many fans didn't care for, given how it disappeared soon after he took charge.
3) Bringing in a new host will spark both Hammond and Reeves fans to say "it's not the same, why did they bother?"
4) There were admissions by Brainiac staff that some results were faked, thereby damaging the integrity of the "science" aspect of the show.
5) The low budget feel of the show is something that Sky wouldn't want, considering it's more "premium" than it was ten years ago.

Although this is all personal speculation.

He's quite happy doing Youve Been Framed style shows for National Geographic in the US though.

He might still have beef with Sky

Braniac ended just as that era of the more lower-budget, homegrown entertainment shows was coming to an end (see also: Road Wars) replaced by higher-budget comedy and drama that is now the staple of the schedule and what Sky is now known for. It's still not anywhere near BBC One or ITV but it's a lot less like ITV2 than it was around the millennium.

Good grief. Has the National Geographic brand sunk that low?

It is when the network is majority owned by 21st Century Fox (per Wikipedia US is 67% International at 73%).

I wish Sky would just disappear. I know it's a bit weird to say this about a company but they come across to me as incredibly greedy and television would be a much better place without them. Maybe we'd have Fox TV UK on Freeview/Freesat and some of the other channels that are hidden on Sky but have some of the big US dramas airing on them?

If the big US dramas were not on Sky they would simply air somewhere else. That's all it boils down to.
The whole point of any company is to make money. Sky (and BSB for that matter) lost money like there was no tomorrow in the early years.

Anyway the latest subscriber figures are at over 12m now, so they must be doing something right. Yes okay the big US programmes and the sports definitely helps but you've also got access to all the on-demand stuff as well so you're not just paying for a chunky box connected to a lump of metal looking at a tiny spot in the sky.

I'm sure the people who made Brainiac could happily cope with a larger budget. Certainly agree it went downhill once Vic Reeve came in, too much "trying to be funny" where the previous version was a lot more effortless.

I don't think the faking thing matters too much, get the results right and then it can be preceded with any amount of entertaining idiocy.

All of television is faked to a certain extent said somebody somewhere once.

Anyway the issue with Brainiac faking was AFAIK in two areas: One was the shattering of a wine glass with some bass and the other was the alkali reaction in a bathtub thing. The latter was revisited on MythBusters (who jacked up the quantities 10x over with little change) but apparently an Open University programme had more success without resorting to fakery Brainiac style:
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/chemistry/alkali-metals

And let's face it, Brainiac's lasting legacy is blowing caravans to shreds every episode. That easily outweighs the forged results every time