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.)
Yes, because as we all know, Comcast means Quality.
- oZ
// i am here.
There. I've said my piece.
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
...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.
Anybody else have a weird feeling that Comcast is trying to buy out the entire world....
Why yes... we are....
Anyways... how much for your house and family??
I have some lineup show ideas.... 1) On Macs 2) Chicks of teck world 3) On open source 4) Hot chicks of the tech world in bathing suits 5) Cool new toys 6) Hot chicks of the tech world in bathing suits showing off cool new tech toys 7) A show of extreme dating meets tech folks (with hot chicks only) .....
Evolution or ID?
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.
Let Adam Sessler be next to go!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You mean just like msnbc which covers all the anti microsoft stories just like the rest of the media?
Some explanation to the Disney bid! I couldn't figure out why Comcast wanted a somewhat-struggling content provider in their portfolio, but now I see that They (as in MS) were looking for that key 3-12 year-old demographic.
"Daddy, Mickey said that all Linux users are terrorists, and that I should kick you in the shins until you buy Windows 2600"
The previous sig has been removed due to
G4 has posted a FAQ on the merger.
is that Comcast HATES HATES HATES DirecTV. G4 has never been on DirecTV because of that. Philadelphia Phillies games are never shown on DirecTV (at least not ones with Phillies coverage) because of their hatred of satellite.
I really hope that it doesn't cause TechTV to disappear off DirecTV. I have about 6 shows with Season passes on my TiVo from TechTV. I'll be seriously pissed.
In fact, I'm already pissed. I like TechTV just the way it is.
Joe Siegler
Webmaster - 3D Realms & Black Sabbath Online
Does this mean I might lose tech tv on my Directv satellite? This just allows Comcast to come out, and charge enough for the programming that other providers(small cable companies,directv,dish network) cannot afford the programming. As these large companies such as Time Warner, Comcast etc., start buying up more interesting programming such as tech tv, I think we will start to see a homogenizing affect. Worst case, they may find that these channels don't generate enough ratings, to make big ad dollars, so they drop them, after they have been assimilated.
Did you read the link in the blurb? Oh yeah this is /. The link says that Leo wanted to leave, not that he was getting dumped.
However his blog doesn't say anything about this as far as I saw in my short viewing so I don't even know if the link in the blurb has it right.
By time I got to watch a decent stretch of TechTV again, it was December of 2001 and the channel was shot. TSS was repeating upwards of four times a day, that Lockergnome freak was destroying Call for Help and the news department seemed to ship everyone off to CNN.
Fast forward a little bit to 2002/2003 and Comcast now has G4 and Anime Network. TechTV is trying to get into anime (never figured that one out) to reach a "hipper audience." G4, even in its initial prime, was akin to watching a post-2001 TechTV (how many of you have watched our very own Wil Wheaton hosting the same handful of "Arena" episodes for close to a year?!?).
Now, I'm no fan of Comcast, but this does one thing: solidifies geekdom in one channel.
Comcast should:
1) Bring Wil back; 2) Give Leo a big, fat payraise; 3) Create a proper news department; 4) Send all of the anime over to Anime Network;
And, most importanly:
5) Get G4/TechTV (GeekTV?) and Anime Network on DirecTV so I CAN WATCH/TiVO THEM, DAMMIT! :D
In all, this is probably a good thing...
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!!!
>(Of course, at this point they've only
>agreed to buy.)
At this point, I've onlya agreed to watch.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
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.
Yes, but TechTV's outgoing owner is Vulcan Ventures, which is a VC firm that's mainly owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. So, one link to MS out, another in. I don't think this is much of a net change at all from that perspective.
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.
I don't even have cable, and I've seen TechTV a lot (by watching other people's DirectTV).
It's pretty good. The Screen Savers is a general technology talk show, and Yoshi makes a bunch of sweet cases (especially Mini-ITX). Call for Help is a good guide if you use something other than Windows and you get bombarded by requests to fix computers because "you're smart with computers". X-Play is a decent game review show. Robot Wars can be very fun (robot carnage is awesome - just watch an episode or two). Future Fighting Machines is good if you're a military nut. They've got all sorts of shows on the making of or the meaning of movies and shows - they recently had a big one on LOTR to coincide with the release of ROTK. They also have some other good shows, but most (including Robot Wars and FFM) are simply rebroadcasts of BBC shows.
My $0.02. TechTV is pretty decent, with "screensavers" possibly being the closest Slashdot will ever get to being on television. You can grab most of the highlights and show abstracts of the website and save yourself some cash. G4 ("the gamer's network" i guess) on the other hand is tolerable in doses, and are obviously still in the progress of building the brand up. They only run during the core hours of the day (infomercials latenights and early mornings), and re-run content in short intervals (less than a week in some cases) with no remorse. To their credit, they're pioneering a tv genre, so I have hopes that it'll get better in a few years. Merging the two seems unlikely, but combined they may wind up with enough quality programming to fill a whole day of scheduling.
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!
Shatner, your agent called, something about a margarine commercial.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Yes, yes, and yes! It will be called: Whipped Cream Panties, Linux, and You.
I also reply below your current threshold.
The better somebody is at being a geek, the worse said person is at appearing on TV. Leo's interruptions are mostly of the nature of keeping the guest on topic and on pace, which is the responsiblity of any TV host. Sometimes, you've just got to cut the guest off because letting them ramble is even worse TV.
jeez - I can't even remember what it was called before X-play
Extended Play. I really enjoyed the promo that had Adam Sessler punching and dodging in a side-scroller, the camera pulling back to reveal Kate at the joystick of a cabinet.
It's available free in the U.S. on Dish Network (channel 9400), many cable networks or direct from Ku-band satellite on Galaxy 10R (11.805GHz, Horizontal, 4580ksym/sec).
Straight from the lab to your living room.
TechTV has recently covered several issues the night before they are posted to slashdot. (Including the "tech news" part of TSS.)
If TechTV needs to go, then Slashdot should go too...
(Besides, we all know that people who follow the advice peddled on Slashdot are equally heading for trouble.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Leo is still hosting, he hosted today
This is his farewell tour as host of TSS. He'll host tonight, and four episodes next week. (Friday has been a scheduded rerun day for a while now.)
This actually is of Leo's own doing. He actually doesn't want to host TSS anymore, he'd rather be hosting Call For Help. His new work schedule, which starts the week after next, calls for him to only be at the studio two days a week, during which he'll record five episodes of Call For Help and contribute some segments to TSS. On the remaining three weekdays, he'll work from home preparing research for both his TechTV duties and also for his KFI radio show which he does live based out of a barn-turned-radio-studio on his own property.
So, this really is the end of a overbooked 7-day-workweek schedule he's been on for about the last six months. He's basically going into a semi-retirement, while also assuring that he'll still be employed even if he's no longer with TechTV.
G4 FAQ: Programming http://g4tv.com/techtvmerger/
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.