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Comcast Fires TechTV Staff
Bocaj writes "Looks like it's curtains for TechTV staff. A Leo Laporte article says that Comcast has let the entire staff go. 'Per the WARN Act (governing plant closings) all the employees of TechTV have been given 60 days notice. The San Francisco operation will be shuttered by July. 100 of the existing jobs will be posted for those willing to relocate to LA.' No word on what will happen to all the shows or the channel."
But, indeed, the merged network's headquarters will be in LA, where G4 has been headquartered. No surprise there.
Still, does anyone think that Comcast is so stupid as to spend all this money on a network, and then get rid of everything that makes people watch it?
I hope they don't dump Tech Live. Slashdot is great for instant coverage, but they did some nice stories on Tech Live; stuff that either wasn't important enough for Slashdot or something like that. It also came on at that perfect "i should do homework but i don't want to" time.
Yup, and thus it was due to failure :-/
...in bed
As far as I'm concerned, the flagship show on TechTV was The Screen Savers. When the show had Leo, Martin, and Morgan still, it was the best show on television.
I understand the desire to move successful people to their own shows, but after Leo moved off of TSS and they were left with Patrick (who is so-so), and then Kevin Rose with his elitist attitude and his little girlfriend (can't even remember her name since she is so annoying) that knows jack nothing about computers, well, I can barely stand to watch the show.
Frankly, I don't really watch it more than once a week. I used to watch it daily. That is impressive simply because I don't watch TV. Last year I didn't watch television at all for six months, after that I only watched it to see international perspective of the War in Iraq.
As such, the only reason I have for cable is TechTV. If they kill it (which they already pretty much have) then I will get rid of my cable TV in a heartbeat. Comcast is insane.
Then again, I can hope that someone else will see the potential it had, and do a TSS style show the way it was meant to be done.
Leo, Martin, and Morgan all act like people I hang out with (I'm more in Morgan/Martin's age group, but I know people in Leo's age group that I talk with about technology all the time). Kevin Rose acts like someone I'd never speak with about anything in person. I don't know the guy personally or anything, but I really feel that TSS is ruined without Leo there, and that it was even better than that before they broke up the staff.
The question is: did Comcast kill TechTV, or with it's flagship show in tatters, was it already dead?
Makes you wonder why they bought it, if they were just going to fold the channel, fire most of the employees and dump almost all of the content. I could understand if G4 and Tech were competitors-- but neither draws much of an audience and a combined channel will still be largely ignored.
A lot of comments here seem to be bashing Comcast for getting rid of TechTV with various sinister reasons behind the show's demise, but I also a significant number of "haven't watched it in 5 months, if ever" type of comments too. Could it be that TechTV had really low ratings and wasn't cost-effective to keep going? Naa...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The thing that boggles my mind is that they are taking a (relatively) diverse channel and merging it with one (G4) that has such an even smaller niche audience that it only comprised 1 show in techTV's lineup. The various articles around the web make it seem almost egotistical as if comcast would think their video game channel is on par or even better than techTV. Don't get me wrong I think more gaming shows are a Good Thing(TM), it's just that this seems like bad business to me. Why not try and turn the business around if it's not making money?
meep
I had G4 when it first came out. Hell, I got a cable box to watch it I was so excited. I can't even describe how many problems they had, from lack of programming, to robot hosts who obviously could give less than 2 shits about gaming, to just insanely pointless programming (That MMORPG show with the HAL9000 voice over). I mean, 8 hours of programming cycled a week. How many times can you watch the same bad show a week? Technically 21. Pathetic.
Want to merge G4 and TechTV? Fine. Kill G4 and take the maybe 2 hours of programming, fix it, and bring it to TechTV, the better channel.
Instead, they do the opposite. They kill the wrong channel and basically put the staff that makes TechTV in a position to not want to migrate.
Comcast should be brown-nosing Morgan Webb and Leo LaPorte like they have gold stuck up their asses. Leo is a pretty smart tech guy that is very personable, easy to understand, and loves his job (none of which are very common in the tech field lately).
Morgan has a rabid army of unsexed fanboys that would pay an extra 10 bucks a month just to see her for 10 minutes a week. Sad, but true.
Are we over-reacting? No.
Because the deal hasn't even went through and Comcast already did the exact opposite of what they SHOULD have done.
Albuquerque PC
Just to let you know, Nielsen is one of the better scams of the universe. It produces next to random, unverifiable numbers and gets to charge kings ransom, plus it gets to decide direction of American TV. No competition. No credible verification. No regulation. No oversight. Ever growing stream of money and undeserved "prestige" (oh, just so fitting the race-to-the-intellectual-bottom enterntainment and the politco-propagandistic info-tainment industries).
What a racket!
Actually, Family Guy's revival was largely attributable to phenomenal DVD sales.