G4 Moves Further From Technology Roots 129
Variety has a piece detailing some new hires at G4, all designed to further move the channel away from its technology roots. From the article: "One of Finn's priorities will be to scout people to profile when 'Icons' relaunches this summer. The 'Biography'-style skeinskein has been revamped to focus on figures that appeal to young men, including J.J. Abrams and Bryan SingerBryan Singer. She'll also continue to strengthen the lineup of guests visiting G4's live, studio-based series. In addition, both 'Filter' and 'Attack of the Show' will be relaunched in June with a scaled-back focus on technology. Heavier emphasis will be on attitude, humor and a broader range of male-oriented topics."
G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:3, Informative)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
2) kristin holt
3) star trek: tng
4) e3
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:5, Funny)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Mon-Wed there are the only days I watch G4/TechTV because that's when the new X-Plays are on. Thurs-Sun, I can't think of anything worth watching on that channel.
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:1)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
g4 is dead to me otherwise (and since i dont subscribe to the channel, they dont get any of my money)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
They know very little about comedy, if you ask me. Their inane little high school skits grate on me like fingernails on a blackboard - they think they're being ironically low-budget funny, but then so does every other teenager with a camcorder. The truth is being an intern on a cable TV show doesn't automatically qualify you as undiscovered talent.
Morgan and Adam are still good hosts, although they've both become a bit too j
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
They just got Bonzai, Which bombed big time on Spike. they're Showing Star Trek now. At the rate their going, I'll give it a few more weeks and they'll be showing Starsky and Hutch and Most Extreme Elimination Challenge reruns.
I dont Get what their thinking about there. First it was Videogames, then it was Videogames and Computers when they Got TechTV, now apparently, it's the second network for men.
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:1)
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:5, Insightful)
When G4 merged with TechTV (I miss Patrick and Leo!) and ditched The Screen Savers, Unscrewed, and Eye Drops, I knew that the station was going downhill. And yes, I know they -changed- The Screen Savers into 'Attack of the Most Boring, Stupid, Waste of Time and Oxygen, Idiot Hour, for Idiots, Run by a bunch of Kids instead of Patrick and Leo', before anyone tells me. Maybe I'm just bitter.
Don't they play 'The Man Show' on G4 now? Give me a break.
What they don't understand is that we ALREADY have 'SpikeTV', and honestly, it's a really f'ing stupid tv network (except for MXC). We DON'T need another one.
PS. Martin Sargent is one of the funniest people in the entire world, someone needs to pick him up for a similar show. If you missed Unscrewed
Re:G4 Moves Further into Crap TV channel (Score:2)
Balance (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Balance (Score:2)
Yes. This was apparent from the time Comcast bought TechTV from Ziff-Davis Publishing. The network was much better under ZD's control...
Re:Balance (Score:1)
Re:Balance (Score:2)
I know the name, but for the life of me I can't put a face to it.
Re:Balance (Score:2)
sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that sucks. The whole reason I liked watching G4 was the Tech stuff. When they added Star Trek, I didn't mind. I like Star Trek, and if you stretch your logic it is kind of about technology as well. But the Man Show, Street Furry, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, none of those are really about tech. I guess you could make an argument about Street Furry being about Car technology, but I digress.
There are in fact women who watch G4, and they are totally leaving us out. We don't want to watch the Man Show (for obvious reasons), I want to watch shows that focus on Technology and Gaming. I want to have guests that all Geeks can enjoy, male or female, young or old. I want Icons to tell me about Tech/Geek icons, not male icons.
Wasn't Spike TV supposed to be the Chanel for men?
Re:sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
The saddest part is that my cable company recently did...something. Going on over 4 months now, there are still several channels where the sound is badly out of sync. You can also expect (no matter which channel you're on), a "burp" every hour or so, where
Re:sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder what happened. The internet I guess.
Re:sucks (Score:1)
Re:sucks (Score:2)
I'm so annoyed at what G4 became
Are they trying to tell us they think gamers/techies have low IQs, that we like shows filled with cliches and pop crap ?
OK, so now we need a new tech tv, where we'll be able to watch... tech stuff because I really don't care about jessica alba's latest iPod!
Re:sucks (Score:1)
It's a trap!
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Really. Kinda like Tourette's, only with fark.com images stuck in my brain.
Re:sucks (Score:2)
What, we only get one? You guys have Lifetime, that Oprah channel, and that other one whose name escapes me at the moment.
I think you are referring to the Estrogen channel [oxygen.com].
Re:sucks (Score:1)
Re:sucks (Score:1)
But to be frank*, I watch more Discovery and Science and a little splash of ComCen (FNSU) than ever watching even MXE or COPS
*and stop calling me shirley
Re:sucks (Score:1)
Hey, I don't watch any of the channels for women either, I think they suck. I would rather watch Star Trek: NG, DS9, and MXE on Spike than anything on the "women" channels. But then again I am a tech girl and we tend to not like sappy movies and tragic love stories. I much prefer to watch crazy Japanese people in red helmets!
Re:sucks (Score:1)
(not tomention the whole velcro suit thing)
Ira
Bryan SingerBryan Singer? (Score:3, Funny)
Pizza Pizza!
Good Riddance (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good Riddance (Score:2)
Hey, I like Infected [revision3.com]. It appeals to a certain taste of warped humor.
I agree about Leo, Patrick, et. al. Their podcasts and videocasts are much better than anything that's been on G4 in a long time.
-Eric
Re:Good Riddance (Score:1)
Re:Good Riddance (Score:2)
Yeah, isn't it great that G4 bought TechTV so that they could...um...not air tech shows anymore?
Targeted programming (Score:5, Interesting)
Good shows might appeal more to one demographic than another, but a good show is a good show.
For example, you can make a show like "Gilmour Girls" and 30-something women will like it more than most other folks, resulting in a "cult hit" within that demographic, and TV people love it when that happens, because it makes selling ad time easier... but if you get a bunch of executives to say "we need to find a show that hits the Gilmour Girls market", that show will almost certainly be a complete train wreck, because they are not setting out to make a good show that will happen to click with certain people, but setting out to click with those people and the need for it to be good is a distant second.
Re:Targeted programming (Score:1)
TechTV was steadily growing in viewers and sponsorship while G4 was steadily declining. Viacom bought TechTV JUST for its viewers, not for the shows. That's why Call For Help, The Screen Savers, Fresh Gear, etc. were phased out. G4 is back on the decline now that TechTV viewers are getting sick of Sarah Lane et al.
Re:Targeted programming (Score:2, Informative)
Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
http://www.adultswim.com/williams/news/index.html
And also great ratings.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Ahh nothing like stoking those jailbait fantasies I suppose... It's fun to catch a couple of these for nostalgia's sake, but I sure hope they won't make a habit of this sort of thing. I watch Adult Swim for two reasons, anime, and the crazy wacked out comedy animated series. I don't want to see any live action. Oh and those homoerotic Burger King ads are totally creeping me out. They did something similar promoting Lord of the Rings too.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
That reminds me of the following from a book review I read once...
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:1)
Assy McGee looks especially humorous!
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Turner Broadcasting (CN's parent) has aired SbtB for years on TBS in the morning and early afternoon, and I think they can do whatever the hell they want with it. It's basically the reverse of what happened with Family Guy, which aired on AS and now shows up at different times on TBS.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:1)
I'd rather watch Saved by the Bell than some of the DRECK that Adult Swim has showed recently. Tom Goes to the Mayor and 40 oz Mouse are two of the 100% crap shows that come to mind.
I watched Saved by the Bell when they originally aired years ago... and it's nostalgia to me. And from what I understand, it's only a two week run.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:1, Funny)
3 words:
College drinking games.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
I don't know. I hated the show growing up and I hate it now.
I watch adult swim for the Anime, Boondocks, and ATHF... I wouldn't mind live action, but it would have to be adult swim like.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Well, OK, most of those are inappropriate for television (as were the Anime they were based on). I'm guessing there must be some out there besides La Blue Girl, though...
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2)
Well, hopefully it will be fixed in metamoderation.
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the real problems with Adult Swim, and I don't know if they still run these, are 12oz. mouse, Tom, Squidbillies, etc. They were horrible and I went back to watching comedy central during those time slots when they started running them. Saved by the Bell just brought me back.
But i'
Re:Same story with Cartoon Network (Score:1)
Young men (Score:3, Funny)
G4 to update again (Score:5, Funny)
"Even with the recent changes," Finn said, "we still don't think we're still not reaching our target audience. We've decided that every program will be replaced with a guy sitting in shorts and a wifebeater, drinking a low-quality beer. The guy will occasionally scratch himself, and of course the wifebeater will be covered in the requisite motor oil and pit stains. We feel this'll really gel with the 'masculine audience' we're striving for."
Audiences will have to wait for the fall season for "Guy in a Wifebeater", but focus groups are already responding by vomiting.
Wait a minute. (Score:3, Funny)
How strange.
wait... there was technology? (Score:4, Funny)
Next thing you know, people will be saying that MTV was originally designed for music videos... *shudders* The world is all crazy, Mommy...
G4 still around... (Score:3, Funny)
He had weird parents. (Score:1)
Re:He had weird parents. (Score:3, Funny)
This is part of a new initiative to make slashdot more efficient by posting the dupe in the original story itself. No more waiting a day or two for the dupe!
SpikeTV (Score:2)
Re:SpikeTV (Score:1)
Re:SpikeTV (Score:1)
Mark my words (Score:4, Funny)
meh (Score:3, Funny)
Scaled-back to where? (Score:2)
I don't see how they can do that; there's hardly any technology focus left on the show.
The only thing I still watch is X-Play. They've apparently dropped Anime Unleashed. Even the shows I used to watch on G4 before the takeover are either gone (Portal, Eye Drops) or I just stopped caring (Cinematech).
Face it, they are taking over. (Score:3, Interesting)
An old penny-arcade comic commented on how games are now marketted at the cool kids. Not the geeks anymore.
I recently played the new Tomb Raider and I noticed something. In the first game she was a geekie kinda girl. Sure physically fit and rich but you could tell she would rather read a good book then go clubbing. A dork with tits.
But over the years she been getting further and further away from that to the point where she now seems to have some "cool" dudes hanging out with her and having totally changed her way of talking.
It seems to me very clear that this game is being marketted at a different audience. This is a game for cool kids who look, or at least think they look, like the characters in the game. Geeks need not apply.
The reason is offcourse obvious, marketshare. If you got the geek market then obviously you want to expand that to the non-geek market and so you add some stuff, remove some stuff and then wonder what the fuck happened because nobody is watching anymore.
I like to call the effect, BBC program being raped by the yanks. BBC is geekie. They got ugly losers losing in the game that is life. Wether that is red dwarf or scapheap challenge it is about fat sad people being normal.
Give that to an american producer and he will attempt to cool it up. Search for Red Dwarf american pilot for a real horror show. The american version of scrapheap challenge removes the team factor (instead having the nightmare of all geeks, the being picked by the team leader leading to the horror of being the last one picked, remember that from school?), adds meaningless radiochatter and camera movements and in general looks like a show that feels american. Ugh.
Sadly it sells. Face it, we as geeks are not a big enough group. Even if a product is successfull at targetting us it is only a matter of time until some person looking for promotion suggest altering it to appeal to a larger audience.
Old tv shows don't die, they just get reworked to appeal to more and more people until finally nobody watches anymore.
MTV has become a joke for being the music station that no longer airs music. It was so much a joke that other stations sprang up to replace it. Now they too are starting with more and more non-music. Why? Because we got this insane law that forbids us from shooting people from marketting.
Re:Face it, they are taking over. (Score:1)
You've got a demographic...but wait, if you just alter a few things, then you'd get more people (and money). As you described, things get altered and altered until finally you've pissed off every demographic you had -- they identified with your product, and as you've altered it so much, they are alienated by it. Afterwards,
Re:Face it, they are taking over. (Score:2)
1) The entire point of the *new* Lara Croft is that she's more realistic. Sure it's still a blow-up doll, but at least it's something that a real woman could look like with a huge dose of plastic surgery and talented make-up artists. Maybe. But it's a dozen times better than the old Lara Croft who had basketballs for breasts. This change has nothing to do with geeky/non-geeky, it's just a long-overdue response to the criticism the character has taken since
Re:Face it, they are taking over. (Score:2)
Don't watch much American TV do you? (Score:2)
The vast majority of Junkyard Wars was much closer to the show than what you are describing. What you are describing is what happened right before the show went off the air.
This happened a long time ago... (Score:2, Interesting)
Then ZDTV turned into TechTV and it was still good. I loved The Screen Savers with Leo and Patrick (and Kate before that), Call for Help, plus the news and hardware reviews (Fresh Gear)... even the X Play show was cool back
Re:This happened a long time ago... (Score:1)
Re:This happened a long time ago... (Score:2)
Re:This happened a long time ago... (Score:2)
Now we just need a better system for it all and tv might get real interesting.
Bring Back STARCADE!!!! (Score:2)
I'm talking about the classic video game "game show" from the early 80's with Geoff Edwards.
Unpossible! (Score:2)
Awesome (Score:2)
for it.
for it.
G4 used o be great (Score:2)
Re:G4 used o be great (Score:1)
Re:G4 used o be great (Score:2)
As for the majority of your post, I do agree. I wasn't a big fan of G4TV beca
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
AOTS, ICONS, and Xplay are the only shows worth a damn left on that network. And then only when focused on Tech.
The only thing I can think of is that their ratings are higher for Street Fury (Occassionally I will stop here until the host speaks) and that other crap fox show and the man show then the tech used to bring in. They think this will translate into daytime viewers. Idiots.
Don't ditch the Tech shows. Improve the tech shows. How about some hosts who have actually read through their material before they read it off the telepromter. How about leaving ICONS the hell alone, I enjoy that show consistently because they are ICONS to me and its like a tech history lesson for my wife in only a half hour. How about some actual budgets. How about NeverMind I'll just watch the podcasts of your old techTV employees.
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Seriously, there's only so much a man can take.
Burn it down.. (Score:1)
Re:Burn it down.. (Score:1)
Why did they even buy TechTV? (Score:1)
We need SlashDot TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Do the kinds of programs Discover and History don't - Popular Science and Popular Mechanics (especially those "top secret" specials). Concentrate on computers and video games... Leave the sports video game coverage for G4 - they turn every E3 into a giant commercial for EA sports, anyways.
Profile the geeky side of celebrities, whether it's some actor spending endless hours on WoW or a jock who sits up late into the night playing Star Wars Galaxies.
We also need news - not like anything anywhere else, but the happenings on your latest MMORPG or the most recent shuffling of developer houses among publishers. News about betas and bugs, virii and easter eggs. Sure other stations may get around to having a special on the quest for the X-Prize, but we want to know the juicy details AS THEY UNFOLD.
TechTV probably got three times the viewers G4 did, but TV execs are morons. It's an old boys network, and they just don't get the target demographic. Others have mentioned the ruination of Adult Swim, and more obviosuly, the parallel with MTV's descent into vidiocy. We've seen the unfailing ABILITY of these jackasses to turn a good thing into crap, and their complete INABILITY to see the terrible result for what it is.
I never tune into G4 anymore. Even X-Play is unbearable, and everything else is Spike TV rejects. Ugh. It needs to just go off and die.
G4 is dead. The time for SlashDot TV has finally come!!!
Re:We need SlashDot TV (Score:1)
"Profile the geeky side of celebrities"
Vin Diesel has been an avid Dn'D player for around 20 years. That is the kind of thing I wish G4 would talk about!
G4's problem (Score:1)
- They wanted to target gamers. Being marketers, they can only think of anything in traditional demographic terms. Gamers are mostly young men. So, they created a network for young men, about games.
- The problem is, young men already watch other networks, and by focusing only on young men they alienated everyone else who played videogames. They soon found that videogamers, on the whole, would rather be playing videogames or watching TV than watching TV about
Who cares? (Score:1)
Its funny to me to hear everyone bitch and moan about how G4 and Comcast screwed up TechTV. Who cares?! Stop co
Oh well... (Score:1)
Seeing Extended Play turn into the crappy X-play was bad enough. Adam Sessler used to be genuinely funny, and they used to put out a decent amount of reviews...then somebody decided the show needed breasts, and it all went downhill from there.
(On that note, I fail to see why anyone finds Morgan Webb attractive. She looks so decisively average it hurts, add in her ridiculo
G4 is now Star Trek TV, and that's fine with me (Score:3, Funny)