Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Signs Deal To Acquire TechTV
FPCat writes "Comcast has purchased TechTV. They plan to merge the station with G4. Maybe they'll stop showing Robot Wars and put some decent shows on instead. In either case, with Leo Laporte no longer hosting The Screen Savers, I expect big changes on the station..." (Of course, at this point they've only agreed to buy.)
There. I've said my piece.
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
I assume TechTV is just one of those stations you get on Satellite, cause it doesn't come on basic cable (I don't have 'digital' cable cause I don't see the need for it).
What do they cover on TechTV? Is it worthwhile?
CVS
free ipod and free gmail!
When they stop people from hosting, they let them finish everything they have planned first -- they just don't yank them off air. His time will probably be up in a few days to a week.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
...since Microsoft owns quite a chunk of Comcast, once this deal goes through you will have heard the last of any criticism of Microsoft or their products on TechTV.
It is to bad that both of these stations just seem to stay very light on the true tech stuff. It would be nice if it were more like a discovery channel for tech stuff. Heck I would love a station that shows different algorithms, or different ways to do things in different languages. But Tech TV and G4 (Especially G4) just seemed like the Commercial Channel that advertises all that is l33t. Tech TV has a couple of good show but they were still laking. I guess that is why I watch Nasa TV.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Even though I only have basic cable, I have seen countless hours of TechTV and G4 when I had the chance. TechTV showed in 1 hour what G4 bloated into 8.
G4 never had potential. Games are an interactive media. Why in God's name would you want to read news and view clips of other people playing games when you could be playing them yourself? Why wait 25 minutes see a review on a game you're curious about when you can go online and find it in 25 seconds?
Hopefully this merger will in effect kill G4 completely and simply give TechTV a little more programming devoted to video games instead.
But then again, you'll probably have to pay a premium channel fee to get this new 2-in-1 channel anyway.
OK, that was funny.
But that would be interesting to see geeks swap their machines and individually upgrade them.
Does GUI customization count as an upgrade. What about a new art of home case painting???? Workspaces and desks should be included.
Perhaps it should be called "Trading (work) Stations".
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
It will really be a shame when he's no longer hosting TSS. I remember when he and Kate were the hosts, and seriously, it was absolutly the best show on the air. It's sad, but a lot of on-air geeks really lack any real personality whatsoever. Not Leo. He is funny, interesting, insightful (you know, all the +1 words). He's the reason I began watching the show almost 6 years ago, and his leaving is the reason I'll watch it no longer. Besides, everyone else on that show is annoying as hell!
He is, in reality, why I'm an IT manager today
We love ya Leo!!!
My Bill went from basic programming for about 30something dollars to 70something dollars. Who's my cable company? You guessed it. Comcast.
I still pay out the cash, though the thing that really irks me is that I don't get the stations I had come to take for granted. TechTV, CNBC world (OK, I'm a dork), and a bunch of other, slightly less important channels.
I guess I'm glad, as I'll apparently now likely get TechTV back, but I seriously hope this doesn't mean another rate hike (above the 8% from last fall, out of which we got zero new channels, and a new arrangement of channels so that I had to relearn every channel again.
My Rant is done...I'm going to go watch Dawson's Creek.
I'm with ya, bud. Leo 'n' Kate, then Kate's emigre to that game show (jeez - I can't even remember what it was called before X-play). The current host set is odd, at best. I haven't watched it in over a year because they're just not the same. It was funny as hell when Woz and Mitnick hosted - stuttering, stammering, hamfisting their way through 90 minutes of fun TV time. The most annoying to me is that Kevin Rose dude. While I admire his enthusiasm for, and advocacy of, Linux and open source, he seems to be trying a little hard to be geeky (man, I wish that was true in high school ;) I think he thinks he's 1337 h@x0r or something. One of his "Dark Tips": Kazaa Lite. WTF? I wish I could stick it to the man like that.
I also reply below your current threshold.
The fact is, computer-based news/facts are so much more easily obtained on the web (with a computer, of all devices). What you're suggesting is like making a radio station dedicated to innovations-in and methods-of television broadcasting.
I can understand what you're looking for, but television is the wrong medium. Stations like G4/TechTV will always be targeted towards those who plan to make the jump into computers, or who have only been recently indoctrinated into the WWW.
I remember watching this show in college. Back then they previewed new video cards, talked about software, and played will all sorts of gadgets. They also let people know about new products comming out. So I am suprised the show never took off. I never once was offered Tech TV with my cable deal after leaving the dorms (it has been many years, and I now get 60 channels, twice as many as in college). I know when I was in college, if Tech TV gave a good review for some cool product, someone in the dorm would purhcase it. So they had a great audiance for selling products. I wonder why they failed?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
While I hate to see Leo no longer hosting TSS, so long as Patrick Norton is still there we're ok. I think he's one of the only true geeks on TV right now. Rock on Patrick.
Keep Austin Weird!
While Leo might be interesting for the color he adds to the show, I have to admit that I cringe when he tries to offer help on any really technical problem. Usually he bumbles around a little bit while Patrick looks something up on the web, then Patrick can give the caller some ideas.
Contrast that with Patrick/Kevin. In this case, Kevin starts out by immediately giving some useful advice, then Patrick chimes in with advice of his own and the websites he just found. All in all, it's better advice to the callers.
My wife has stopped watching TSS due to Leo. With luck she'll start again. I just hope that they don't bump the 11:00 CST rerun of the show; that is the time slot I always catch.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
In general I like Leo (especially as compared to many other TechTV-ers), but you are sooo right about his interrupting. It's like he's so enthusiastic to show off how much he knows that he
Leo jumps in
"finishes their sentences for them and follows up with another couple of points that leave the guest just to sit there and give an awkward, 'uh, yeah' while Leo continues on? Yeah, I hate that, too..."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I've been watching TechTV for about 3 years now, and I can tell you that Leo didn't always interrupt his co-hosts or guests. Only within the last 9-12 months has this started to happen. He used to work VERY well with Patrick Norton.
There is a local public access technology show in my area, and the host on that show NEVER lets his guests finish their sentences. It must just be something about the business.
However, this G4 FAQ needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it appears to be written by G4 employees whose jobs are just as uncertain as TechTV employee jobs at this point. At a business level, G4 is not buying TechTV... Comcast is buying most TechTV from Vulcan Ventures, with Echostar being fussy and refusing to sell their shares in TechTV, Inc.
That, and the FAQ really doesn't ammount to anything newsworthy. The listings of shows aren't exactly promises that any of the shows listed will continue or those left out will not, and the fact that the network's "headquarters" will be in L.A. just means that the PHBs will be located there. For example, CNN presently houses their executives and master control operations, but most of their weekday lineup is originating from New York City and Washington D.C. moreso than Altanta at this point. The content people don't always have to be at "headquarters".
Another thing that the FAQ nicely dodges is whether the new network will be called "TechTV", "G4", or some other name.
Or will Comcast pull it from DirecTV in another lame ploy to get us all to subscribe to lame ass "digital cable?"
We all know how wonderful Comcast's "customer service" has been...
Yes, because as we all know, Comcast means Quality.
I know you're trying to kid around about comcast, but despite all the horror stories i've heard about their cable modem offerings, i've had nothing but "good service" from them.
I used to have pacbell DSL. Routinely I would come home to find that stupid green light blinking while the damn thing tried to keep a connection. Sometimes it would go out for 3 or 4 days, any you would think pacbell would have prorated my bill due to service disruptions, never happened. Everytime I would call them I could never get a human without going through some hellish voicemail maze that some sado masochist set up.
Comcast on the other hand, i've only experienced maybe 1 or 2 short outages that would last no longer than a few seconds at the most. On top of that they bumped everyone up to 3mbps now.
Also, pacbell techs LIE. I was setting up a mandrake MNF vpn to one of my customers remote offices. Supposidly they had been set up on static IP's, and the pacbell tech that set it up charged them for that type of setup. After a few hours of trying to replace their linksys with the MNF and pings timing out, I discovered the truth by peeking inside the linksys... The tech had lied, there was no static IP's allocated to that line. Yet he charged them for it anyways.
So even though you got a funny on that comment, it's the truth. Compared to pacbell (which may not really be "quality" to begin with) comcast is quality.
I don't use my mod points for "Funny" mods any more...if I'm going to use them to up a score on a post, I want that person to actually gain some karma out of it. Same reason I don't mod up anon posts.
WTF happened to the "Thunderbirds" !!???
I use to watch it every night at 10pm CST.
TechTv hasn't been the same for me since they dropped "unscrewed" in its place.
who doesn't like marionettes ? let alone, super spy world savior marionettes and their kickass model ships ?
and, that "pop-up-video" style information was great.
duk
You have got to be kidding... Back when X-Play was Extended Play and before Morgan started annoying me with her voice it was a much better show. The comments were much more funny and you didn't have to put up with Morgan and Adam's annoying forced banter. Sure she has great honkers, but they could just review more games like DOA Volleyball to make up for it.
Paul Allen cashed out of Microsoft just as it started getting real evil. He's sort of like Woz to Bill Gates' Jobs. Although I twinge when ever I hear the "co-founder of Microsoft", he actually seems like a pretty cool guy. He opened up a Rock museum in Seatle, and he's setting up his own SETI radio telescope array.
Frankly I find all the "hosts" annoying to some degree
Leo is by far the worst, ignorant, loud and he continually interrupts people smarter than he is.
Patrick needs to stop saying "well, ya know what...." before or in the middle of every sentence
Kevin needs to either learn more than on hand gesture, or stop doing it every 15 seconds
Sarah needs to go away, or at least not be on screen. She's not very knowledgable and she's not very good eye candy, unlike Morgan, Jessica and Erica (or formerly Sumi and Sumi) who are both and then some.
Yoshi should have his own segment at least a few times a week. The guy has some really neat ideas, but hearing them has always been impossible because he's always on screen with Leo the interruptor. But somebody does need to explain to Yoshi the difference between "mod" and "built from scratch".
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I didn't see anything about viewers. In other words I suspect that your worries will turn out to be founded
When I was at G4, The Viewers were the last thing on management's mind. There were some executives who actually had a great deal of contempt for "those stupid gamers."
It's like that in most of television, though. The Viewer is just a potential sale for the advertiser. What The Viewer thinks just isn't important to The Company.
In this age of mega-mergers and vertically integrated companies who control distribution and content, they don't have to give a flying fuck about The Viewer, so they don't.