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Former TechTV Shows and Staff Dropped
Thanks to nikkisaindon for the heads up about some goings on over at G4TechTV. Apparently, Unscrewed with Martin Sargent has been cancelled, and according to Alex Albrecht's blog most of The Screen Savers staff has been let go as well (including Yoshi).
While channel flipping the other day, stumbled onto "The Screen Savers" where the big topic was FPS. Whatever.
When it became G4 Tech TV, it was dead. Informative and useful shows were killed on if lieu of gaming shows (badly hosted, IMO). Good hosts were replaced w/ young, clueless wanna-bes.
Collectively, we can only hope the ratings finally hit the toilet and the station is killed off for good.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
This doesn't suprise me at all. I used to be a big fan of TSS and some other shows on TechTV, all the way back to when it was ZDTV. But since G4 bought out TTV, it's gone to the crapper. I have seen a few episodes of TSS and it really has become sub-par now. I'm very sad to see them go, but since the XTREME! makeover by G4, the old TTV shows have gotten bad.
Before the takeover, i watched techTv probably 6 hours a week. Since the merger, i've watched less and less, down to about 30 minutes a week.
Since the changes on TSS i haven't watched it in 3 weeks. (and now Yoshis gone??? he was the only reason i even watched!!!)
It's truly a sad day in geekdom.
Imagine if the cast (and other creative people) from The Screen Savers were to independently produce new episodes (probably with a different name and slightly different format if they don't have all the rights). Then they would sell advertising just like any other TV show, but instead of broadcasting it on a network, they would release it on the Internet (probably using bittorrent).
What would make this viable? If TiVO and other PVRs included support for it. You could subscribe to Internet shows just like regular TV, and they would automatically be downloaded (and shared until you deleted them, with some bandwidth limits).
Perhaps you could find enough unemployed media people to do this on a volunteer basis (for the publicity) to demonstrate the concept. It's probably not viable yet to pay the necessary sallaries. (How many viewers would it require?) Still, it would be cool to seem someone try it.
If you have access to G4TechTV, you almost certainly have access to the internet, so why bother?
I never understood the appeal personally.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
For what it's worth, TechTV was at it's best when they went with the MSNBC/CNBC format of live broadcasts during the week.
However, no word on Xplay. Since it's the only program I really watch on the network, and since it's a great recap of what's out there and what is coming, I hope that it somehow survives.
Dr. Wu
I miss all the other old shows too. Call for Help, Silicon Spin, Big Thinkers, Fresh Gear, CyberCrime ... all entertaining and informative.
Now after the G4 merger, the only thing I have any interest in at all is XPlay, if I happen to catch it when I'm surfing by. Otherwise, to me the channel has ceased to exist.
Dreamers, shapers, singers, makers... Elric, the Techno-Mage
I did, tell them you watched Unscrewed and you want the show saved!
Then again, with cable and dsl broadband as widespread as it is (yes, I know it is not ubiquitious), and fiber to the home just around the corner, maybe they could be all gathered together under one roof as a webcast.
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Ok, well that's not true.... the sad fact of the matter is that since this merger, or more appropiately deemed conglomerate corporate buy out between G4 and Tech TV all of our favorite Tech TV celebs and shows have been getting the axe.. including programs that had been with us since the dawn of ZDTV! (Remember those days?) When I first heard of Comcast / G4 buying out Tech TV the first thing I thought is uh oh.. Unscrewed is toast... but alas they fooled us and lulled us all into a false sense of security. And now, just after Laura, Marty, Joey, & the crew moved from San Francisco to LA, evil G4 pulls out the rug from under us all. My dad and I are long time fans of Marty's.. back from his Screen Saver days til now and we've literally seen EVERY episode of Unscrewed. Living in the LA area, we attended the last show taping.. as well as hung out w/ the gang at the bar after the show. This thread's purpose is to share that experience with all you loyal fans who deserve to hear about Unscrewed's sunset.. as well as to clear up a few things other threads on this forum were questioning.
First the sad answer to the main question: Yes Unscrewed has been cancelled by the evil G4 empire. There was some speculation because not much 'proof' was delivered other than moblog pics.. but it's true. Some of you may have read another thread of ours about Laura Swisher being interviewed for and appearing in the pages of Draculina magazine which we write for. We wanted to do the story up big, lending lots of publicity for the show but the G4 publicist continued to decline our request (despite the fact we'd MET Laura at a taping and she said she was interested) stating that G4 couldn't appear in a publication which had mild nudity... (uh.. Girls Gone Wired.. cam whores.. etc etc..?!?!) Now we find out the real truth why G4 didn't want any publicity for the show. When I spoke to Laura last night at the show taping about all of this she informed me that she wasn't even told that we'd contacted the publicist to pursue the interview and wasn't aware that we'd been told no. It seems G4 had Unscrewed's death warrant planned out. We wanted to thank all of you fellow members of the Unscrewed Army for your posts, votes, emails, and support. I talked to Laura and informed her that the story could still be done on HER as opposed to plugging G4 and she said she will be contacting me... so it may still be in the works. All you Swish fans, keep your fingers crossed!
Now onto the taping of the last show and the send off at the bar after. Everyone at the last show taping was informed that 'it was going to be a very special show' but the G4 crew still never let the cat out of the bag that the show had been canned. A small number of us had heard and knew already, but for the most part they were playing dumb. It was announced that the G4 dignitaries would be in the studio (whoopty friggin doo) and many Tech TV (and G4) personalities participated as members of the studio audience including Kevin, Sarah, Dan (Foo), Alex, Yoshi, etc. The show began as normal but there was definitely something in the air.. and that was validated by Marty's many on camera inside bitter jokes and cutting cracks aimed directly at G4. (We Love You Marty!) It was expressed to us later that evening by some crew and Joey that it was almost 99% definite that this episode will NEVER see the light of day and will not be aired on G4 because of all of the anti-G4 cracks, innuendos, bitter-ness, and strong language. Thus, the last episode, which explains it's demise in the Unscrewed fashion, may never be seen... so let me take this opportunity to tell you about it... CAUTION: Spoilers below in bold!
Marty opened the show with a G4 audience jab Helloooo Gamers! in a slightly high sarcastic voice. (This is not to say there's anything wrong with gamers or gaming but unfortunately
I got started in the computer field when I was flipping through the channels and landed on TechTV. TechTV is where I learned about Linux. I am currently about half way through my CS degree and loving it. I never would have made to this point without TechTV. I will miss it. Oh well, at leasst there is still the Linux Show to listen too.
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This seems important enough to go on the main page. It certainly doesn't belong in just the games section, almost the opposite.
When G4 took over TechTV, it started to go downhill fast. Getting rid of the original cast members signals the homogonization of the network into nothing worth watching. I used to like to watch TechTV because they were one of the few networks on television that would tell you if a product sucked.
As for Martin Sargeant, he was entertaining about half the time... some of his bits were really stupid, but his self-deprecating style was funny. His show was one of the weakest on the original TechTV and ironically, it was one of the shining stars on G4 so I'm not surprised it was cancelled.
On the bright side, it's better to completely kill off all the good content on G4 rather than maintain the lousy network in pergatory. With the dearth of useful content, there will be a gaping hole for a new network to rise up and providing some useful programming to the tech community.