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Comcast Fires TechTV Staff

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the no-one-left-to-save-the-screens dept.

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."

7 of 664 comments (clear)

  1. Enough with the overreactions by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This doesn't mean that none of the shows or hosts will be brought back. It means all existing contracts are getting torn up, and Comcast may opt to bring some people back on their own terms.

    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?

    1. Re:Enough with the overreactions by 511pf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes. They bought TechTV to get rid of their competition.

  2. Re:Press Release by evanbro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Too bad... by tekiegreg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yup, and thus it was due to failure :-/

    --
    ...in bed
  4. Stupid enough to cancel the wrong channel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Thanks Comcast by mattkinabrewmindspri · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Since when does anything Comcast does make any sense?
    • They put bandwidth restrictions on customers, but don't tell the customers what the restrictions are.
    • They try to buy Disney.
    • Now they buy TechTV, kill off a whole network of great programming, and replace it with G4? Seriously, what kind of loser wants to watch other people play games?
    --
    Albuquerque PC
  6. Family Guy by bobobobo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Hey it worked for Star Trek and Family Guy right? =)

    Actually, Family Guy's revival was largely attributable to phenomenal DVD sales.