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Inside TechTV/G4
An anonymous reader writes "Former G4TechTV employee, Dan Huard, blows the whistle on G4. In the last half of his article, he states that TSS manufactured questions and used 'ringers' to ask their questions on the show."
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What next? Professional wrestling is scripted?
Slashdot posts a link to a world-postable forum. Perhaps Mr. Huard will get a visit from the GNAA.
Speaking of TechTV, why did it go off air?
I'm not surprised one bit. G4 is finally realizing that they messed up. Nobody is watching because they've completely done a Hitler move and fired off all of the good TechTV people. All that's left is good-looking, young hosts who don't know jack about what they are talking about. It's quite sad how fast they turned one of the best networks into the worst.
It was so blatantly obvious that this was going on, that I don't see how anyone who has seen the show recently could have thought otherwise.
Leo was the only person giving TSS any semblance of watchability. When he left the whole thing spiraled down the toilet fairly quickly. Even before then, a lot of the unique tech content that made TSS cool at the beginning had started to be replaced with useless fluff.
Next.
AT&ROFLMAO
I haven't watched TechTV since it was bought out by G4, and, to be honest, I don't intend to start. It was excellent before the takeover, but afterwards, the focus changed, and it became clear that the new management didn't want the "geeks" that watched TechTV. So be it. But don't expect me to watch G4/TechTV anymore.
1. A TV channel
2. A TV show
3. Because people watch TV shows
Now heres my question for you: Why the hell are you bothering to post in the story if you have no idea what its about? Get a life man.
TechTV started going downhill when they let go of Leo Laporte. I used to be a huge fan of The Screen Savers, and when he left it went down, then when Pat left, it went down more, then with the latest generation it's total crap. So I have cancelled my Comcast Digital Cable which is the only reason I had it... to watch The Screen Savers
Cyberbite Networks - Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers & Colocati
G4 - the network that bought out TechTV, which really sucked
/. says you should.
TSS - A show called "The Screen Savers," used to be good until the G4 buyout, see above.
Why do we care - Because
Le français vous intéresse?
I second the motion.
;-)
Most "tech tv" shows [not just that station but on other stations too] are so dumbed-down or outright incorrect [or just pandering] that they're not worth watching anyways.
If I wanted to see a grossly overweight freak pluggin iMAC b.s. I'd bring a mirror to best buy and hang around the wrong sections
hehehehe.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
MTV has no music and now G4/TTV has no tech. G4 is dropping the TTV half of the name and going solely to a "lifestyle" and gaming network. What a crying shame.
To the geeks here I say, "Boycott G4 and their sponsers. Write letters to the sponsers. Boycott their lame message boards. Spread the word far and wide."
The Screensavers message board is being ruled by mods who only recently became mods. I suspect that they're G4 fans and/or employees. They immediately lock any thread that criticizes the show and they'll ban you in a hearbeat if you persist. Don't even bother posting there.
The show looks like it's being run by some old fart who used to be in radio.
Seriously though, I agree with the other comments; mistakes have been made and now consequenes must be suffered...kudos to Dan!!
Why do we care - Because /. says you should.
Wow, I knew some people had weak constitutions, but that is ridiculous.
So I happened to turn on G4TechTVwhatever the other day, and I was appauled. "The Screen Savers" is little more than the old name on a new, much campier, much less useful show. I mean, I never liked everyone on TSS, but those idiots on the air now seem to be up on tech less than most Best Buy employees (no offense to any Best Buy employees on here, just needed a good, recognizable generalization of people who know little about tech but because they work for a tech giant fool the general public into buying whatever the advertisers want).
I think that's the most disappointing thing (see the parenthetical comment above): Leo and Patrick used to tell people not to buy this or that, seemed to be big fans of open source, security, etc. (of course in Leo's case it was a Mac-addiction, but that's ok), and even though they knew most of their audience was PC-based and had to cover them the most, tried to spread things out, give everyone a taste of everything, and if something sucked, would let everyone know about it. I remember them even going against IE before it was popular, and Paul Allen was their boss then. Now we just hear about the campy mainstream this thing is cool marketing drivel.
Ah, but those were the days. Let's hope this isn't a precedent. What's next, Slashdot brought to you by Dell...*shutters*
The purpose of a media company is to make money selling product and promoting the owner's point of view. This, in turn, means that viewer share is paramount, and that if you have to "fix" the content to get more viewer share, so be it.
Viewers do not want reality. They get enough of it from work, raising children, the tax man, and the world in general. They want to associate, identify, and forget the crummy world they had to endure most of the day. The masses want Disney, okay?
You should always remember a media business truism: "The public are morons". Media types will never say this out where you can hear them, but I have sat through enough conference room discussions to know where these folks land. The reason for this is simple. In the great statistical average of the world, it's true. As much as you would have it otherwise.
It is said that only one person out of thirty creates art, literature, science, or policy. Skip media. Hang around those folks instead. Become one of them. We need all we can get.
Yes, I consider the Internet to be media now...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Or so I've heard.
I don't think people are shocked that it happened, but I do think it's good to get the straight scoop about how the situation evolved.
As a moderately geeky business major, I see this as a management failure, so having this story helps me understand how not to screw up something good. If some geeky broadcast majors read this article, maybe they can help prevent some other geeky goodness from failing later.
Just my two cents worth.
If there is no longer a channel that appeals to geeks, why not create one? I'm see a huge market potential for it. There'd be millions watching it. Probably all the real geeks from TechTV would fly over, giving the channel some talent.
Slashdot Channel anyone?
I was being sarcastic
Le français vous intéresse?
TSS was steadily going downhill long before G4 got ahold of them. Once Leo Lapporte it was all Patrick could do to stay afloat.
I no longer Tivo'd TSS or any TechTV show after that.
Summary.
TechTV was good.
G4 is horrible.
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
I haven't watched TechTV for years because of exactly this sort of suck factor. It used to be kind of cool to see shows on TV that actually talked about Linux on par with Windows, but they've taken a good thing and completely screwed it up. Go out of business fast, so we can start The Linux Channel.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
leo and patrick. where the backbone of techtv. since then, these dumb changes has made it go downhill. Techtv is spineless. worthless. g4techtv is going to be remember in history like the titanic. i love gameing..im an addict. ill spend 8 hours on it. and im 30 years old. but g4techtv sucks. i love technology also... they ruin something that was working just fine. they should teach in harvard business about g4techtv as what not to do. this network needs leo and patrick. what a joke..g4 is.. where did they how to ruin a company from enron?
G4 is a network aimed at the video game (console and PC) markets.
They were merged with TechTV to take advantage of the greater audience
availability that channel had gained.
TSS is an acronym for The ScreenSavers. An end-user oriented Tech News,
commentary, tips, call-in and variety show that was the flagship program
for the defunct network.
We cared because back in the day, while TSS did reflect much of the Windows-centric
viewpoint of much of the computer industry, they were also a positive and active source
of news and information about OSS, Linux, Windows Alternatives, Windows Security and
functional issues; and keeping an open mind about users choices in use (and abuse)
of technology.
A slashdot story (from michael the censorware killer, no less) complaining about journalistic integrity! Oh the irony.
At the bottom of the
Eventhough TSS is down the drain, G4 has degenerated into the Millie Vanilli of tech talk and Leo has long since departed; those of us in Los Angeles can catch Leo on KFI and avoid paying toll charges. It's one of the few redeeming characteristics of living in a cultural wasteland. You can check out Leo here (http://leoville.tv/radio/pmwiki.php)
I don't need no estinkin'
Jeepmeister
Once G4TechTV i stopped watching, then i started listening to Leo radio show its my new show. soo nice to hear Leo just talk his mind.
But G4 bought them out. The ONLY thing they have done right (in my opinion) is keep X-Play running (new episodes and they don't seem to have changed it much if at all). TSS is terrible. As far as I can tell (and my TiVo) there are no new episodes of Invent This!, Fresh Gear, or a few other shows since G4 took over. The G4 content (the only one I've ever really watched is Filter) seems amaturish (like a high budget public access cable show) and like marketing smothered it with "love". The host is an idiot, it's full of "cool stuff" (acording to marketing) and the show is just terrible. The show would be MUCH better if they would just drop the host. I've found nothing else on G4 that I like (with the exception of the occational episode of Icons).
So for me, G4 has become the X-Play channel. Becuase they don't seem to want to make new episodes of the shows that they said they would keep (see above), that's the only thing I watch on the channel. When I first got satellite TV (DirecTV), one of the big reasons was so I could watch ZDTV. I got to watch The Screen Savers and all sorts of other interesting stuff (remember the show that would show computer animations made by people? That's how I discovered Animusic). Over the years, the channel has deciled (as TechTV although that wasn't SO bad) to being about as high on my list of "good" as SpikeTV (I used to think the constant banner on the bottom of TNN was bad, how I wish for those days).
All they have to do is mess up X-Play to lose me forever. Put someone with a BRAIN who is in touch with the AUDIENCE in charge of the channel, huh? Give it to Leo or SOMEONE. Because marketing is about to market me OUT of their audience.
RIP G4/TechTV, it's been a long, sad decline.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
(This is, of course, my opinion.)
I started watching TechTV when it first came on the air, when it was called "ZDTV." I was thrilled at a channel dedicated to computers and technology, since I have yearned for many years for such a channel to come about. I enjoyed the show very much throughout just about all the time when it was known as ZDTV, and when it was then known as TechTV. I use to watch The Screen Savers quite often, along with Fresh Gear, Cybercrime, Unscrewed, and a whole host of other shows that premiered on that network at the time. At this time, it was no doubt that TechTV was my favorite channel. I then started another year of school, so my free time to watch television (and, more importantly, TechTV) was rather limited. When I finally found some free time in my otherwise busy schedule, I flipped on the television, and decided to watch some of my all-time favorite channel. It was then I realized that was now known as "G4TV." After hitting "Guide" on the remote control and realizing that all my favorite shows were replaced with
new shows, (ones that mostly pertain to games) that the old shows and hosts were gone, (Leo Laporte was indeed a favorite to me) I quit watching the channel. For me, the show is ruined. I hope that the Slashdot readers do not find this as flamebait, but the channel simply does not appeal to me anymore. (Judging by what I previously read on Slashdot, a lot of readers are no longer watching the show, too.) I have not been keeping up with the show, or the hosts, but I last heard that Martin Sargent, the last of the original TechTV crew, was fired. (You can correct me here, since I am really not sure.)
PS: Is there anybody here on Slashdot that likes G4TV better than TechTV? If, so respond. I would be pleased to hear what you have to say.
you're 100% correct. 15 minutes of watching that channel made me really sick.
I remember calling a pop station back in 1990 (yes they actually played a decent rocking song during that period) to request said rocking song, and was instructed that they only played "requests" that they set up. You basically had to "request" something on the set-in-stone playlist.
Then really unethical things happen. Then someone blows the whistle.
Reading through some posts here -- media is _supposed_ to be something it's not at times -- ethical. Just because some media is extremely unethical doesn't mean that it all has to be. It certainly doesn't excuse the people that have been caught doing the bad stuff.
I've worked in many different industries in my time, but what has surprised me is that in the Banking industry, they make you sign an ethics statement before you can done an ounce of work.
You'd think before you were allowed to publish stuff or blast it out over the airwave, there'd be similar rules in place.
BUT NOOOO!
-== FeriCyde Chat ==-
I hear that those guys on cop shows aren't really peace officers, but people they hire to pretend they are policemen.
I lived in US in 1999/2000 and I have a very good memory about the TSS and TechTV in general. Actually, I tought about how nice would be if I had it on DirecTV so I could watch when I returned home. Looks like it's not the case anymore :(
Scientia est Potentia
He was "appalled" in that first line (not "appauled" which I can only surmise involves some sort of sexual act with Paul Shaffer)
In the last sentence he "shuddered". At no time did closing any shutters take place.
Complaints about journalistic integrity from the site that runs blatant ads masqurading as stories and obvious Good Old Boy networking via the Roland Piquepaille gambit.
Im another who stopped watching TechTV after it merged with G4, i used to watch that channel all the time, in fact it was pretty much the only thing i watched on TV. Almost right after the merger you could tell it was going downhill and everything was changing. I havent watched in a couple months now and i really dont care to. G4 needs to fire EVERYONE who is in uppermanagment and hire some gamers who know what they are talking about for the jobs.
I was happy when i finally got Comcast Digital Cable cause it meant i'd get to watch my fav shows again, a year later its all gone and im back to sticking with dvd's and the computer for my entertainment.
Honest. But when I got to the sentence where he uses the phrase "the talent" to describe a group of people, I just had to stop. I mean, come on: A Site That Opens Your Mind To Computer Technology?! Oh, wow, thanks. I really needed that. Yes, thank you for opening my mind with your fucking website.
grammar-lesson free since 1999. (rescinded - 2005)
"Fused" implied some aspects of TechTV survived.
I'd say a more accurate description of things would be:
Comcast was having trouble with their G4 network, which was not popular (especially not in their target market, where they were generally reviled) and was only available in a small number of areas due to a widespread lack of demand. So they bought TechTV-- which was available on far, far, far more cable networks than G4 due to the many years spent building up a reputation-- with the intent of simply replacing TechTV with G4 and thus getting all of TechTV's market penetration without having to work for it. So they bought TechTV, announced G4 and TechTV were "merging", gave TechTV's former screen personalities token jobs for a short period before firing them or driving them all off, and are currently settling into a situation where G4, in pretty much the exact form it was in before the merger, is now showing on those channels where TechTV was previously available.
G4's name does still have that vestigial "TechTV" appended to the end, but one recent G4 press release I saw referred to the network simply as "G4"; either this was a typo or that final superficial "TechTV" will be disappearing from the name before long.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If slashdot readers call with simple decoy questions, then switch it up to something more worthy of a phone call when on the air, the producers will be forced to focus on technical aspects instead of entertainment value, or they will look inept alot.
...
Please wipe the shocked expression off my face.
Um, this wasn't the previous/current generation Apple CPU (and current Motorola^W Freescale embedded offering)? That's what "G4" says to me. Perhaps a brief additional moniker would have been warranted. Actually my second guess before R'ing TFA was something about future mobile phone tech...
/. either. Some editorial touch, pretty please.
I don't know Jack Scheisse about TV shows in the USA, as I am a citizen abroad for a few years now -- and not the only such one reading
I saw a few episodes of TSS recently. All they do is recycle that day's Slashdot articles. What are the chances that they'll recycle this one? :)
But you won't be there forever. When you move on, the next person will most likely pillage your audience for the maximum profit/lowest cost.
I think that's what was shown in the original article. While the show was under control of TechTV, it was good. After the buyout/merger, it sucked.
I haven't been following TSS for about four years, but to me, TechTV has been going down even before this G4 stuff. For a while, they had like 12 hour blocks of TechLife. Then they filled up that space with a bunch of Robot Wars crap. Right before G4, it seemed as if that's all TechTV ever showed...after G4, the situation was slightly helped with some random gaming shows. But these G4 shows are pretty terrible anyhow, so things are still bad.
although I never saw the show on digital/sat as I'm in Ireland :(
I have downloaded alot of eps and it was extremely sad to see the show going down hill
I watched about 3-4 shows after the layoffs when Kevin was thrown to the sidelines and it just wasn't interesting anymore so I stopped watching it.
Sad to see a good show crash and burn due to bad decisions...
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
I'm curious what CleverNickName has to say about this.
Doesn't look like he's been very prolific since the Ask Wil Wheaton Anything Again story a couple weeks back, though.
+++ATH0
I meant TechLive
"Management didn't want 'geeks' asking questions on our show anymore. I had to become more judicial with the people we put on our show. Producing a live call isn't as bad as it may seem. They're still genuine questions from real people. Since the show was taking on more of an entertainment-value format, it only makes sense to find people who speak eloquently and have not as technical of questions (at least for the A block). But this is where the problems started. For five to six years TSS has groomed its audience to be geeks, they encouraged it. When we moved to L.A. that all changed."
No 'geek' question? Dudes, you have a TV networked packed with Anime and babes babbling on about video games. Who exactly do you think is watching out there?
http://junglevision.com -- Shamus for Gameboy
for a person who fantasizes about the glamour and popularity that would be his if only he could be a nerd?
Being a nerd isn't cool. But at least you have some respect and recognition from fellow nerds.
the Screen Savers were the only show on TV that would come close to taking about technology. Where else on TV would you hear Linux mentioned as well as a live install (as Megan did on a show) They would often mention programs that I had never heard of and I would go download them. The first time I heard of Knoppix was on The Screensavers. Hell, they even had Taco in for an interview. (The last good thing they did after the merger)
I once loved watching the show but now I can't. The new hosts are all about gaming, gaming, gaming.
This is /.!! Morgan and her gorgeous face, stunningly curvaceous figure, wry liberal arts humor and vocabulary, not to mention those mouth watering cantaloupes, provides the only value that G4 or TechTV ever had.
Screen Savers always was lame. Who here couldn't do a better job than those weak dorks?
But, Morgan, now there's something to open a new box of Handi-Wipes for!
AntiG4TechTV has the whole story of techtv and g4 on their main page...
http://antig4ttv.com
I can't say I'm entirely surprised. As a journalism student I've seen that there's an inherent "fakeness" in broadcasting.
It was worse for TV, but even in my radio class we "greened" our live interviews by pre-interviewing them off air and writing up questions. So the interviewee pretty much knew what to expect. A print reporter wouldn't typically do that.
You know that back-and-forth the host sometimes does with a reporter (CBC radio uses this a fair bit)? It's all scripted ahead of time, the reporter just has to learn to sound conversational.
But as I said, TV is worse. Ever notice a TV interview will go between the interviewee speaking and the interviewer nodding? There aren't two cameras there, the latter is called a reverse shot, and it's usually taken before the interview even starts. The interview audio is then dubbed over top. A reverse shot is a clue that the reporter is cutting something out, avoiding a "jump cut" between two different parts.
Now I look at TV news a lot more critically, because they emphasize the appearance of "smoothness" and "continuity" over honesty.
"Excellent! A story of being called "stupid intern" by a woman who..."
Umm, in your paragrpah, he refers to himself as comminitng a "stupid intern mistake", and then goes on to say she was always good,a nd one of the nicest people he'd ever met. Where the hell did you get this tirade on her from? Not your quote.
Why the bitterness; Did she just send back your boxers without signing them or what?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The last few times I dared watch X-Play (about a month ago), I noticed that the show went from criticism, to showing cinematics and previews of upcoming games. Opinions seem to have been removed from the show. It was like a series of commercials interrupted by lame banter.
At least Morgan was still hot... but that's just not enough anymore, so I tuned out forever.
Well done Comcast...
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."
What Comcast did to TechTV was sad. Funny thing is I always think back to the merger and I thought it was good at the time. I thought it would bring new content to TechTV, who had some great shows, but not enough to fill a full day.
Comcast's purchase of TechTV was really the equivelent of a hostile takeover. They wanted to get G4 in as many homes as possible, but they couldn't get new markets cause cable companies weren't biting on it. So the only option they had was forcing those cable companies to take G4 by buying a station they already carried, merging the two for a little while, then stripping the TechTV part out of it. They never intended to keep TTV, it was all just a scheme to force cable companies to carry G4 overnight, and unfortunately TTV was the channel they picked to destroy. It is basically G4 = a virus and the host it found to take over was TTV.
Something to the people who quit watching after Leo left. I was pissed too, and quit watching for a while, then slowly and reluctantly got back into it. Kevin Rose ended up being a great replacement. Still wasn't Leo, but if that's why you quit watching, you would have liked Kevin.
I'm always an optimist, and I hold hope that someday, something will come along to fill the hole on TV for the geeks. In the meantime, we can get our fix by http://www.thebroken.org/. Basically, that is The Screen Savers that isn't allowed to be on the air. Great stuff, so check it out.
Kevin, Dan, Yoshi, Leo, Pat, Megan, etc... I'm sure you guys are reading this thread and we beg you, get together and get back on the air somehow, hell just do a monthly internet show, anything. You guys entertained people for years and it's sad what corporate america can sometimes do to a great product.
I hope a lot of people get fired for the abortion G4TTV is.
I think it is pretty clear that Comcast wanted to make use the TechTV trademark (because it's popularity was growing) to promote G4.
Furthermore, I think it's cleat that Comcast has intentionally alienated hardcore TechTV viewers.
I have had people who work in TV tell me that nobody tries to alienate any viewers, but I think it is more than clear that G4 wants TechTV viewers out and replace them with an MTV crowd.
Want evidence of this? Look at the commercials. Gone are the cadillac commercials. Insert the goofy video game commercials, and some really stupid (dumbed down) computer hardware commercials. I saw an nViDiA commercial that actually explained what a GPU was!
I figured such a commercial was more non-tech channel worthy, but when you consider G4 is driving out tech-oriented viewers for MTV gamers, these "dumb" commericals are quite appropo.
I'm fairly certain the comment was a self-deprecating one, and he was appreciative that she put up with him as he dealt with the huge learning curve that is Broadcast TV.
I like microcars
Looks like a bad guy from HL2.
Every time I hear G4/TechTV I get depressed. They combined an awesome channel with a sucky one to get a semi-sucky one. They fired all the good people on TechTV (We miss Leo!), replaced them with G4 people that are obsessive Mac-hating gamers (the new guy on the Screen Savers dislike Macs and is an obsessive gamer. Nothing like Leo, who had some actual intelligence and gave GREAT tips), and completely ruined the shows. And they removed a lot of the good stuff (Call for Help for example) and rarely air some of the surviving good shows.
:'(
We miss Tech TV...
I can't describe how much I detest G4. They basically destroyed the best network on TV, and I still haven't gotten over it. The Screen Savers used to be a show that would showcase new technology, tell about current news in the industry, and offer many informative tutorials. And not only that, it had a great cast that worked together superbly on live television. I used to watch it almost every day at 6 PM CST, but now what is left of it? It's just a shadow of its former self. Now it's just another G4 quality show, filled to the brim with mindless bullshit and pointless facts. They tried to turn TechTV into MTV, and I suppose that in a way, they succeeded.
You may use clips of the shows to make your own shows, as long as you allow others to do the same with the show you produce.
OK, it's a troll, but who wouldn't want to see Taco and CowboyNeal hosting their own shows?
because it is
So, so true, and yet the powers that be that run this website will never allow this truth to be told in any way. Slashdot is runned by complete hypocrits.
I'm just trying to figure out how homebrewing beer & purifying vodka tie into a computer technology show. And one that seemingly more and more is catering to an under 21 crowd at that.
It seems that http://www.techtv.com/ doesn't respond to requests... has it been DDoS'ed?.. ermm.. did I say... i mean... slashdotted... right... has it been slashdotted?
The Television Wiki
figured this out after watching one show.
Gah, they asked the lamest stuff.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Step 1) Pick up the old TSS staff for peanuts
Step 2) Go back to the old formula: Interesting news, honest reviews, no shameless plugs
Step 3) Profit.
I was thinking of switching to Voom, as I really wanted more HD channels but I couldn't get TechTV so I never switched away from Dish...
Now he only thing holding me to Dish is XPlay. But I can't keep a whole system for one show - so come January, I think I'm going to Voom and dropping the XPlay channel forever. It's only a matter of time before they destroy that show too - and if Morgan and/or Adam ever leave the show would be just as dead.
I wish I could pay $1 an episode to download XPlay...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
who is it protecting him?
who is really calling the shots at G4?
why is such incompetence allowed to continue?
why is it the same at every big company I've worked for?
why can't anyone in management actually effectively manage?
sadly, it seems that power corrupts, and the corrupt are crappy in power
Words to men, as air to birds.
I watched TSS in particular since ZDTV days, and I was very sad to see Patrick and Leo gone. I also missed Megan and Cat.
Unfortunately, I had it happen to me in a worse way than usual, I think.
My University (Texas) did not have TechTV on dorm cable, so I didn't get to see it (throughput caps prevented me from using BT to get the show). When I returned home for summer vacation, I was shocked to see G4TechTV and the suckage that the channel entailed. I had lost one of the only TV shows that I truly enjoyed watching.
I guess it was kind of like going off to a foreign land, only to return home and find your friends have all moved away.
I was actually a very dedicated watcher of "The Screen Savers". I had watched TTS since almost the very begining. Up until the "merge" of the TTV and G4, i had a bond with the hosts of the show (kind of like character bonding to a good book, or to a character in a video game). Seeing this show go downhill really annoyed me. It makes me want to do something about it. I hate change, escpecially for something that was great and didn't need it.
Looks like they also have roving bands of ringers to flame anyone who complains about the new format.
I used to watch "Call for Help" and "The Screen Savers" each and every day for a whole year... until G4 and TechTV combined.
After the merge, I tried to keep on watching "The Screen Savers" ("Call For Help" was cancelled pretty quickly) but I just couldn't stand it anymore, the show was becoming awful and boring and now I havn't watched a single show on G4/TechTV in 6 month when I used to watch TechTV non-stop. I miss the OLD TechTV... I WANT IT BACK!!
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I'm really glad that Dan wrote this, I've checked Kevin and Sarah's blogs often, and they never say anything negative about working at G4. Although you know when you watch the show, they seem disappointed at what its become. I really liked Dan on the show too, even though he didn't do much, before the merger I liked the chemistry the whole crew had. It was a no BS approach to everything tech.
Now its replaced with celebrities playing games... I could care less what console 311 has, or what Snoop Dog plays in his pimpmobile. Even their "Gaming news" is no compairason to Tech Live, its mostly watered down content from sponsors, from 6-8 months ago. The reruns are really pathetic, as I was watching the other day they were talking about GTA3-esque games, I thought they were going to talk about an upcoming game, but instead it was a preview for True Crime: Streets of LA. I'm glad to say I've stopped watching G4, I'm a gamer but I like to play games, not watch celebritys play games. Anyway I wish Dan the best of luck in the future and hopefully another TechTv will come along, and not get swallowed up by a "Style over Substance" company like G4.
mount
I've always thought that a show similar to TSS (though perhaps not live) and starring Leo and Patrick could probably work well on the Home & Garden Television network. Dang, I wish I were a TV producer because then I would try to pitch this to that network and get Leo and Patrick on board.
What was so bad with Patrick and Kevin? I mean, it was no where near the incredible duo of Leo and Patrick, but they weren't bad. Kevin brought a "youthful", "fresh" kind of air to the show (which I bet the marketing folks liked), and it was still fairly solid content wise. Once Patrick left, the new guy (what the hell happend to him? There for a couple weeks, gone the next), albeit annoying, was reasonable (and a computer science major I believe, making him at least somewhat educated on the subject =p ). But WHY do they have the current two hosts? I'm sure they struck a happy medium somewhere in their hosting pairs post Leo & Pat where the execs could be happy and us geeks could have out show
OSDN does the same thing. Look at half of the banal tripe that is on Linux.com....
Let this be a lesson to all of you who think that PeopleSoft will survive the Oracle takeover. PR puts a rosy glow on the initial buyout, reasssures everyone in the sinking boat that they will keep it afloat... and then a few months later, they'll start poking more holes in the ship. Little by little. And then finally they'll just bazooka that mofo with some excuse like "interoporability issues" or "rising cost structures in a new economy." Why do companies feel it's necessary to lie to us when we know what's going to happen anyway? They're just mollifying the desperate and stupid.
On techtv canada Leo still does call for help, it's located in Toronto now. ;o
...you must have a different sort of Starbucks near you than I have near me.
Besides, friends don't let friends drink Starbucks.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Since G4 took over, it became nothing but crappy video shows and shallow hosts. I knew TSS was going bad when Pat left it. Now it seems to be more focused on high school kids.
Maybe the GNAA can troll their forums.....
Someone finally called Wil Wheaton a fucking asshole to his face!
Well remember people, Leo Laporte is NOT gone. He's up in canada. And I suggest you all get your bit torrent clients read and start downloading episodes which are located at http://derekrodgers.uni.cc/callforhelp/ server is having a little trouble lately tho but check us out in chat, maybe someone has the .torrents ...its really the only thing left of the old tech tv.
I've been gleefully watching the network continue it's flaming downward spiral, and the only thing keeping it afloat is Morgan Webb and X-play. You can tell from all the advertisments they run every single day that they are building the network around the show. It's the highest rated show(and the only halfway watchable one) and if anyone were to leave it, (especially Morgan) the network would die literally overnight.
Promoting 'fraud' ie lieing.... great attribute to put on a pillar.
Viewers are not that dumb, if they are sick of reality, then they'll just smoke some drugs or tune out on some pills.
Of those that are dumb, how the hell do dumb-ass people make enough money to be worth it to advertisers? Or is everyone a lieing scum ass kisser that is destined to be taken to hell by satan on 2012 when judgement day comes? I hope so.
So where are these 1/30 people, hire me, ive done loads, and I see dumb shits getting good jobs (GWB), whats the go?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
That currently watch G4TechTV, i'm surprised they haven't gone bankrupt or closed down. Really, I don't know anyone that watches it. Maybe they're just trying to save face by holding up a money-loser.
Remember that picture Kevin got as Mr. Spock? well I saw this on a G4's forum, enjoy!!!!
Michael Eisner posting AC on Slashdot. Who knew.
I think the hosts should be chosen more carefully so that they are at least somewhat knowledgeable (substance over style).
You can tell which comments were made by slashdotters because they're poorly composed and usually just derivations of "G4 suckss LOL".
I keep wondering how happy people like Erica Hill and the other folks who left for better jobs must be now that TechTV is destroyed. Hell would have to freeze over before G4CrapTV would ever air a show like TechLive. Or any news for that matter. News is just not cool, you know.
I have great dislike for what they've gone to one of my favorite shows, The Screen Savers. I watched it every single night on TechTV. Even if I knew most of the tips and stuff already, it was still interesting to get the latest news and hardware reviews, along with the occasional mod or hack. And the cast was like a family. True TSS fans really got to know these people, and it was hard to see most of them go.
Change happens though, so I was prepared to handle a new Screen Savers without Leo Laporte, and then later without Patrick Norton. It wasn't a horrible show, but it wasn't what it was. I chose to keep watching, since I had gotten used to Kevin and Sarah at least, from their time on air.
Well then G4 came along and raped the channel of anything worthwhile. They hire Alex Albrecht as co-host on TSS, whose only redeeming quality seemed to be his ability to insult as many types of people as possible during his short time on the show.
During this time, I also came to realize that every single news story they gave, when they even did the news, had come straight off of Slashdot here, or the other top news sites; a blatant example of why they still needed a news crew, like with TechLive. They even stopped reporting on new hardware for the most part, unless it was something that might help a gamer out.
Then to add insult to injury, the fire everyone left who might make the show worth watching. Without the occasional mod from Yoshi, I simply can't find any reason to continue watching this show. The hosts know nothing about tech whatsoever, and even worse, one of them is also named Kevin, just to make things confusing. I don't blame Kevin Rose at all for not wanting to take the helm of this new version of the show, because I'm sure he saw it was a sinking ship. Why have his face on it.
I just despise G4 and no longer watch anything on it. I hope Dan's inside scoop sends fans into an uproar, which leads to the demise of this poorly managed company.
And I wish the best of luck to Dan Huard, who was apparently the backbone to the show for much longer than I realized.
It would be nice to have a channel that truly catered to geek tastes, but that's why it's television and not the Internet. Because the average moron can't be bothered to meet their entertainment halfway. They only want to sit back and be spoonfed. How the fuck else do you explain reality TV?
So stick with chatrooms and sites like slashdot if you want any kind of serious tech discussion. Because while you might get some decent informational value from the Internet, the TV medium is geared to the lowest common denominator, the kind of person who buys products based on the ad. The kind of person who watches MTV, or buys an Ipod because "hay 50 cent had one in a video!!1"
TV's primary audience is DURRR HAY MORGAN WEBB IS HAWT AND THEY'RE TAWLKIN BOUT GTA AND DAT GAME IS SOOO FUCKEN HAWT OMG!!!1 Real nerds know all about GTA, and don't need Snoop Dogg's approval before they can justify the purchase to themselves. Real nerds don't give a fuck that Morgan is hot, because they're BT'ing pr0n at 200kb/s off of empornium.
Nerds should never want their "culture" to be hijacked by the general public.
Just so it's clear, this is never something I would have countenanced when I was managing editor of The Screen Savers. And I know that my successor, Patrick Norton, would have brained anyone who suggested such a thing.
We did sometimes pre-book calls - and I do it now on the Canadian version of Call for Help - for production reasons. But I always hated even doing that. I never do it on my radio show. But far worse is using "actors" to ask canned questions. That's just plain lying.
Unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me.
Leo Laporte - Chief TWiT, TWiT.tv
Actually your will save is based on wisdom not constitution
"After that all you got left are the kiss-ass, blame layers, who make it their job do drive off anyone good left. Nothing new here..."
Or people who simply can't easily run away from a problem, or don't believe in running away from a problem (shouldn't you be headed for Canada?) But don't let the facts stand in the way of a good slashdor-style character assassination. You shmuck.
To be honest, I always thought TechTV was lame, and now that they've become 'The Gamer Channel', they are just that much lamer.
I remember about a month ago I was trying to watch Robot Wars, and instead of showing it fullscreen, they wasted most of the real estate on what I think was supposed to be a 'virtual' handheld game thing, which made the actual video box so small as to be unwatchable.
Hint: Lose the Gamer 'tude, lose the 'gadgets that only work with windows that only a loser would use', and get back to *tech*.. Hardware, and non-PC stuff.
"Viewers do not want reality. They get enough of it from work, raising children, the tax man, and the world in general. They want to associate, identify, and forget the crummy world they had to endure most of the day. The masses want Disney, okay?"
Of course not. We have people with fake boobs. Fake faces (plastic surgery, botox). Keeping up with the jones. Hair club for men. If we can't even be honest with ourselves? Why would we want entertainment to be honest with us?
"I've worked in many different industries in my time, but what has surprised me is that in the Banking industry, they make you sign an ethics statement before you can done an ounce of work."
Note what happens in business when ethical indescretions are ferreted out. There is no such thing as ethical frameworks (the quest for the loophole).
"You'd think before you were allowed to publish stuff or blast it out over the airwave, there'd be similar rules in place."
Ethics doesn't start at the point of a pen. but much further back in one's formative years. Ethics isn't just for the "other guy". Two "ethics malfunctions" aren't the exclusive domain of the famous or the rich. Everyone who's said "They'll never know"* and acted upon it, is familiar with "ethical malfunctions".
*Thought is the precursor to action. Every bad act has a bad chain of thoughts behind them. Fear of consequences more than ethics seems to be keeping society from falling apart.
XPlay is a gaming review show, that is usually fairly funny - while there might be some value in a "highlights" DVD from the show, You really wouldn't care for episodes much beyond a month or two after they aired - kind of like old gaming magazines.
That's why it would be a great candidate for a pay-per-download. The material does not have much shelf-life so it would be something people wouldn't mid paying for to see that weeks episode quickly, and it wouldn't spread much via P2P as it simply wouldn't be shared very long or by very many - far simply to pay $1 and download the episode instead of waiting for someone to put it up.
The same could be said of many shows that dont age well - like reality TV where any episode older than a week is pretty much worthless!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who cares? Any outrage about this is completely missing the point: Screen Savers is a lost cause.
I remember religously watching Computer Chronicles with Stewart Cheifet when I was younger. I also used to watch TSS regularly; I even upgraded my cable package to one that included ZDTV just for the show. It was (although at times a bit basic) funny, informative, etc.
I lost track of the show when they moved to L.A. and got rid of Pat and Leo. I turned it on a week or so ago just to see what was going on these days...just in time for an insightful discussion about the word "scrotum", complete with snorting and giggling from the new adolescent "hosts"...and a new set that looks like something that a 7 year old would come up with if you asked them to imagine their dream playroom.
Thanks, Comcast...thanks for not only failing to recognize quality TV, but apparently actively setting out to flush it down the toilet.
Japan was well involved in WW1 on the allied side.
Quote from
http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm
Japan, honouring a military agreement with Britain, declared war on Germany on 23 August 1914. Two days later Austria-Hungary responded by declaring war on Japan.
The level of "insightful" information was lower than that of the typical Microsoft Wanker here on /. And that's not saying much. I hated TechTV since it mostly seemed to appeal to the armchair techy. You know what I mean... the guys who won't pop open a CLI other than to run ping, telnet, ftp, nslookup or a "net use" command in Windows.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
That's nice. Would you mind telling me why you are so certain?
I'm fairly certain my interpretation is right for the reasons I outlined. Also, most people don't put their own words in quotation marks, so when he says he made 'stupid intern mistakes' that someone else put up with, I imagine the other person used the term. The learning curve in the incident quoted had nothing to do with TV and everything to do with poor instructions. The instructions were to get sounds of 9/11, without qualification. The intern got sounds of death and destruction, which must have been hard work, but the boss wanted people singing. That to me is a stupid employer mistake.
Of course that was just the beginning of kiss and tell. The author then exposed dangerous working conditions, while telling us that he did it of his own accord, and finishes off by telling us the new call ins are a complete fraud.
The first two stories are a big deal on their own. The story about using his body as a moving blanket for heavy equipment in a U-haul alone will get someone in union hot water. The sound story is more wasteful than you might think. I can only imagine how long he had to work and how much money he had to lay out to get permission to broadcast other people's death and destruction noises. These are not things you tell about yourself unless you have alternate career plans are trying to set someone else on fire.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
how i miss the days he called in sick and they let the much more intelligent and useful kevin fill in.
You must be under 30, judging by your high Slashdot userid #. Leo was (and still is) a lot smarter and a lot better at answering questions that you seem to think. He also knew some of the history of the technology he was talking about and was often able to come up with solutions from outside of the normal Windows Pentium 4 PC or PowerPC Mac spheres.
I'm only 33, but Leo seemed to have much more useful answers for viewers' questions.
Fake callers have been part of the tradition since ZDTV began.
They used to push, push, push Netcam calls -what we would call webcam calls today. Video calls made for better TV. But when the network started, not many people actually had webcams or the bandwidth and it just didn't work.
SO what's a TV station to do when they have to have video... they make it. Many, many netcam calls were actually shot in the ZDTV offices with interns or somebody with a pulse put in front of the camera. If a fresh face wasn't available, stick a hat on somebody's head and bingo, a new caller. Sometimes they didn't even bother to pretend it was real and just shot it right in the cube farm with workers in the background. But they got the shot.
This practice went on for years and years. More recently, people at home -viewers- actually started having their own cameras and bandwidth so the legit call factor sort of went up (minus several million points for the moron call screeners who overdid themselves finding dumbass questions). The on-air talent would sometimes go out of their way to comment on things in the caller's room or whatever to make it obvious that it was not a staged call.
Anyway, this was all made public years ago. What does Dan hope to gain by mentioning it again? Oh I know: he needs a job! Pity he needs some skills first. Maybe he can flip burgers or something. Nah. That would involve more than sitting on your butt all day.
G4 is trash - they have just trashed techtv and it is about worthless - I mean everytime I skip by the channel it is showing a video game - sorry but I want the old screensavers back with Leo and Pat -along with Leo and call for help. G4 is just slime - they are nothing but money grubbing slime I will never watch their piece of shit channel again. Just another reason I am chalking up to get rid of cable.
OK. So it's a Saturday night and I've been sucking down some beer so please forgive my rant.
...) . I'm not a gamer but the FEW game oriented shows that TechTV did have were decent and I could watch them.
I liked TechTV. They had some pretty decent shows that kept me entertained (Screen Savers, Unscrewed,
Enter G4. Their lineup sucks. I can not relate to half of the grunge people that are on their game oriented shows. I'm an engineer, I like tech and that is what TechTV had. I think that a major mistake was made when some dipshit allowed G4 to take over. Hell, I tuned in to G4 for the first time in ages and found that the Screen Savers was now being filmed in Los Angeles. Give me a break.
Anyone else here with me?
I remember religously watching Computer Chronicles ...
I just took a look at the Computer Chronices entry on the IMDB. The recommendations seem a bit, well, strange. If you like Computer Chronicles, they also recommend
A Garfield Christmas Special (1987) (TV)
The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)
American Bandstand's 30th Anniversary Special (1981) (TV)
"Password Plus" (1979)
"Square Pegs" (1982)
"Let's Make a Deal" (1980)
"The New Yankee Workshop" (1988)
"Makin' It" (1979)
"Family Ties" (1982)
Norman Rockwell: An American Portrait (1987) (TV)
It burns with the power of lemons!
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Please mod parent up --- He's a good guy!
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
I think it's shitty that G4 (Comcast) accepts advertising dollars from eAcceleration and thier Veloz/StopSign Malware. I saw a commercial for it during what will probably be one of the last few episodes of "Unscrewed". Imagine the feeling a company like Nvidia gets when thier ad is sandwiched between an ad that starts with "Your computer is infected with spyware" and then followed by Kevin Perreria mocking Kevin Rose and calling him "so leet" and by his last name for the remainder of the show. Kevin Rose is far from my hero, but cmon, the guy knows his shit, posted the D.H.S report for everyone, and deserves better than to be called "sooooo 1337"
Loved TechTV when it first came out.. Had it in my channel lineup until ComCrap took it out.. I loved watch ScreenSavers (Leo and Patrick).. Was kinda happy when I found out it was coming back (G4TechTV) but then found out how badly ComCrap could screw up a wet dream..
I used to record ScreenSavers on my Tivo.. It's gotten so incredibly bad (recently) that I took it ouf of my SeasonPass manager and gave it three thumbs down.. I don't ever want to see the show again..
It'd SURE BE NICE if Leo and Patrick and perhaps some others from the old TechTV crew could get together and start something else up...
Good grief, I hated that show! All they had were patented "inventions" that I thought up (just like everyone else I'm sure) when I was five years old... the electric ant killer - I did one better using that aluminum window alarm system tape, and a HV circuit from my Radio Shack 301 kit. Cat doorbell - come on.
LOL yes, because human sexuality is SO FUNNEY.
Idiot.
Get real Leo. You are way worst, you steal about 99% of your content from BoingBoing and pretend it's yours. Kevin Rose does the same thing with his DarkTips. I question the all involved with TechTV. None of you have any ethics. Sorry.
I work in Broadcast TV and Film and I've been an Intern there before.
You obviously don't work in Broadcast TV or the Film Industry.
It is considered a privilege to even be allowed to work as an unpaid intern and your job description is basically:
1: Help Put Out Fires
2: Read Minds
Things change so fast that a list of instructions and tasks can become outdated in 15 minutes. You have to learn how to listen and take instructions "in context" with everything else that is going on around you.
The faster you learn how to "read the mind" of whoever your boss is, the more job security you have.
It's not really that hard or unfair as it sounds and when you get a good team together, they can accomplish quite a bit in a very short period of time with minimal communication
The world of TV is not as controllable as a Factory Floor or Production Line.
His story about using himself as a moving blanket is actually a pretty common one. Not that exact same story, but I've seen PA's and Interns do all sorts of stupid stuff over the years to make sure that something got safely to its destination on time.
No, these are just common stories that everyone who has actually worked in "the Biz" can tell. They are actually rather tame and I'm sure he's got a few whoppers he wouldn't talk about publicly
(I know I've got a few....)
I like microcars
I know there are a lot of people interested in what some of the former TechTV employees are doing now. Most of them have webpages but Patrick Norton does not. For those wondering Patrick is currently doing freelance writing. Recent articles have appeared on ExtremeTech, CNet and PC-World amongst others.
Again, Patrick does NOT have a website or blog but I do try to post links to articles he's writen on my blog as I run across them and as time allows.
Sorry?
Thats an intersting way to end a sentence when you pretty much call the man a lier. Perhaps you would care to eleborate on your hatred for Leo, and Kevin?
Perhaps you would care to give spacific examples? Pretty much every dark tip that Kevin did, he gave credit to the authors of the porgram. When leo did a segment he always referred people to the website of the program they needed.
Please go back to playing your video games and masterbating over pictures of britney sphears and leave the rest of us alone.
To let you know, in 1Q 2005, G4Tech will once again become G4. Who didn't see that coming?
I have a tendancy to agree with previous poster. On numerous occassions I have witnessed Leo read something from one site and not give credit where credit is due. As for Kevin Rose's DarkTips I cannot speak to that directly. The ethics, or lack of I should say, it seems reasonable to assume that G4TechTV is not doing the right thing most of the time.
As Leo said unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me.
This is a legitmate point raised. If G4TechTV stages calls you can bet they are up to other shananigans. I would not put it past Leo, Kevin and the entire company now.
Linux 2005 or bust!
Leo was never on G4TechTV.
I used to watch TechTV every once in a while when I was sitting down in the kitchen to eat some cereal or something for lunch or breakfast. Some of the programs were really quite good, and done, I think, quite impressively given the geeky nature of the material. After the "merger," I think I watched a total of 20 minutes of G4:TechTV before I changed the channel.... to the weather channel... Nuf said.
Apparently Rogers bought the rights to Call for Help (or something) and is now producing the show out of Toronto, and it's being aired on the Canadian G4TechTV channel. Website.
And as for the rest, I agree with most of the other sentiment here. Personally I thought Kevin and Patrick worked on TSS, but after G4 bought them, and they put on that "Alex" guy, it just went down the tubes. The whole tone changed, and it was NOT a good thing, and it was almost painful to watch the guy.
Still, I didn't know the whole details of the affair, so I was glad to read the article to see exactly what happened, and in what order. The link at the end of the blog to Wil Wheaten's blog was also good IMO. For those that missed it, that link is here.
Still, sad to see a good TV show go down. Sure it wasn't super-involved in the technical questions (not too complicated for the lay person), but the "feel" of the show was right, and I enjoyed watching. Now, no way. Only if there's NOTHING else on, which is rare.
Erioll
What kind of BS thinking is that? I could probably say you might have an argument (and that's a big might btw) about Kevin, but saying that Pat and Leo were up to a bunch of shenanigans because the company that they were once employed by was bought by another company that then ran the bought company into the ground, is just plain stupid.
Think of it this way, you work for company A, Huge company B buys Company A, you not liking what you are seeing about Company B leave. That Company then fires pretty much everyone that was associated with Company A. Company B is then shown to be a bunch of liars and thieves. Does that make you a liar too, when you were never part of Company B?
Now onto the kevin situation. From all that I read Kevin wants to get out of G4, but he is bound by a contract. Several times he has posted things that are not flattering about G4 on his blog, which have strangely disappeared later (guess who ordered that one). I get the feeling that Kevin wants out, he even gave up hosting the show (or he was pressured, no way of knowing for sure).
So in short you have an argument that G4 has done shady things, hell I would agree with you. But as of this point you have no proof at all that TechTV did anything shady, all you have is unsubstantiated conjecture.
To be honest I don't recall him ever doing that. They have on occasion brought up a site on the big screen, and pointed to a certain passage on a site. Most of the time they mention the site, as for the rest of the time it is probably just live TV screwups that happen.
I think on of your last sentence is probably the closes thing to being right. TechTV, and the people that worked for it (while not perfect or a saint) did try to do the right thing. G4 seems to go out of their way to be underhanded.
Runned?
did kevin give credit to the 2600 when doing the hiding information in books/shoes/etc?
What's bad is that they had to resort to getting family members, friends and employees to call.
Oh well, what are you gonna do?
http://www.macinhack.com
TSS and Call for Help had great value, (unless you were 1337 or wizardly, of course) in that it at least gave the noobs and the common folk something to learn from.
I don't even know wtf is on that abominition of a channel anymore, and personally, I don't really care, either. It just looks like most all the other braindamaged crap that's on TV. And no, someone bragging about their 1337n3ss might impress a few kiddies, but it doesn't impress me, or any other self respecting nerd.
I used to be a big fan of TechTV, up until May 7. That was effectively the end of TechTV to me. G4 basically took over the channel and replaced everybody with young, slightly more good-looking hosts.
Message to G4 types: young, good-looking hosts don't make a show. People that know what they're talking about do.
So now, G4TechTV sucks. It can't even be considered TechTV anymore- they completely revamped TSS into one of the most disgusting shows I have ever seen. The only good host is Keven Rose - is he still even with them? I haven't watched it since about September. And X-Play. It's the only show I *will* watch on there. At least Adam and Morgan got to stay. I dunno how they didn't get their personalities butchered.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
After reading Dan's blog, a few things come to mind...
First, producing and working in live television is hard. Most TV shows manage entropy and mistakes in retakes and edits. Live TV has to work every time, and in the case of TSS, every day. To complicate things further, they had to manage (at least back then) a live audience and viewer call-ins during the show. This is very difficult to manage and still get an informative and entertaining segments while still hitting your time checks for commercials. So I have a lot of respect for people who can do it well and keep the show entertaining. The old TSS was pretty good at this.
I'm not surprised not upset that TSS used to use caller emails to choose and screen people for the show. This is actually a regular practice in the business....take NPRs Car Talk. In order to call in for that show, you first leave a message on an answering machine earlier in the week introducing yourself and describing your problem. The show's producers choose 9-10 interesting ones with people who seem like they sound good on radio and call them back asking them to be available for the show's taping (they get up to 1000 calls a week). Not only does this ensure a smoother, more entertaining show, but it allows the show to do some research on the issue before airtime. That way Tom and Ray can have some ideas on what to say with specific details about the car in question without having to "um" and "ah" their way through the conversation. Since their show isn't live, the show can easily be edited for time. All this is akin to what TSS used to do under Dan's stewardship and ok to do (although professionals like Leo don't like even doing that since he appreciates the challenge of coming up with advice on the fly).
What's not okay is start staging all this with preselected questions and bringing in people to ask them. Hell, you might have just started hiring actors since that's what it would have eventually come to...you would have ran out of family and friends to use. And despite what the producer thinks, viewers can smell that kind of fraud a mile away. Part of the "charm" of live call-ins is dealing with people who don't work in TV or radio every day. The good on-air talent can guide them to the question (if they ramble) and can get them to the point, answer their question and move on. Most talk radio hosts have to master this skill and people like Leo do this very well. Going to staged calls means that you're cheating and don't want to do the additional work your job requires.
Which of course is just a reminder of the sad state of affairs of the ship that is G4TechTV and TSS in particular. This whole fiasco is a classic business school case of what can and often goes wrong in a merger or buyout. Usually one side of the equation "wins" and the other side is eventually reduced or marginalized. G4 wanted TechTV's viewer assets and network access..nothing more. They made token attempts to keep certain shows alive, but clearly this was secondary in their overall strategy. Their mistake was even thinking that most of the old TechTV viewers would stick around with the programming changes. After all, you don't want to chase away viewers that advertisers are paying for. But advertisers aren't stupid and smelled this business plan a mile away. All advertisers who catered to people who were over the age of 25 bolted for the door immediately. The network execs who made this business plan have shown a shocking ignorance to M&A basics that wouldn't survive any b-school class immediately...and of course these viewers had the most money to spend!
I'm in the process of setting up my own Internet Tv station based in Queensland, Australia I hope to one day create simlar live show simlar to the screensavers. If people fund the operation and equipment cost
needs to be modded way down
Transexual/transgenderism is
a very real condition, and has
nothing to do with sexual desire.
I can't believe that such an ignorant
comment was modded +5. That's like someone
making a racist joke.
I think human sexuality is hilarious...
I hate to say this, but the writing for TechTV was on the wall already. Sure, it had a viewership that was larger than G4's... and G4 wanted to combine that viewership with their own in the hope that it would become a profitable channel. Like it or not, TechTV was only barely profitable for most of its run, and at the time it was running people like us... that technical people... did nothing but complain about the shows.
Get real people, this is the way these things go. Television tries to be many things to many people, and boutique channels like TechTV are almost doomed to failure from the outset because of people like us. Look back on message boards that still exist... look at Usenet... very little constructive criticism of TechTV's format and shows and a lot of bitching. Not very helpful.
At the end of the days, this also destroyed the Discovery Wings channel; it tried to bring in the general aviation crowd who did little but complain about the format and shows. As a result in about a week it'll become the Discovery Military channel, eschewing GA programming because they just can't make their own market happy.
Boutique channels are by their nature of limited audience... this makes them hard to market to advertisers and therefore reduces their possibility of profitability. If they're too narrow in focus they WILL fail. TechTV was almost the right balance, but like it or not the majority of "computer users" these days are gamers. These people form a much larger market and therefore a better potential target for advertisers. G4 may have completely screwed up the balance by focusing on games too much though.
G4's biggest problem is simply that they don't understand their market. They should be balancing the games with more technical stuff... drawing both audiences in... but at the end of the day they won't. It's a horribly mismanaged channel and I for one haven't actually watched in months.
I hope G4 dies actually... and Discovery channel picks up The Screen Savers and reinstates Leo and Patrick... now THAT I would take the time to watch. While it was not always the most high-brow television it was always at least intelligent enough for my tastes, "dumbed down" enough for non technical people to grasp... and had a good on-screen crew that had real chemistry.
There may not realistically be room on TV for a completely technical channel... it was a brave move to try but it ultimately seems doomed to failure. Now, technical shows like TSS on Discovery or Science... that makes more sense since they already HAVE the right mix of programming, though sometimes a little light on technical details. This would be a perfect advertising target.
Oh, and the biggest problem with game-TV? The fun of games is PLAYING them... not watching somebody else play. Reviews? Cheat Codes? I'd say the majority of gamers today have broadband... all this information is online and easy to find.
Drake sums it up pretty nice.
"There is a culture of dishonesty and hubris at G4 that would make an ambulance-chasing lawyer cringe..." from his journal.
The grandparent post is frightening, and I'm glad someone pointed it out. Not surprizing to see the only intelligent post in the thread moderated down.
I just need to say this:
G4 I will forever dislike you for making one of my favorite shows other then Good Eats away. You didnt take it off the air, but you made it into something that no one could love.
You made it into something dirty and lame.
Others just as I are grieving for their loved program.
I hope you get bought by HGTV; G4, and all your Gamer people are made to wield garden spades,dig in the dirt, and learn how to serve things on crackers.
Once a comment has been repeatedly flamed, perhaps the "flamebait" label is a bit late?
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
I wanted to read this article so bad but was away from my computer for a few days. now i come back, and it has been removed from dan's site. does anyone have a transcript of the article? if so, i would really appreciate it if you could post either the full text or a link to the full text. :-)