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24 Hours with G4
Nathan Smart writes "A writer for satire site The Game Rag watches 24 hours of G4TV and lives to tell about it." From the article: "'Cheat' had to evolve into a broader format, which coincidentally no longer involves actual cheating, and became a show about walkthroughs and tips. So right off the bat there's an immediate problem, and it ties back into that internet-thing I said earlier. There is nothing, seriously nothing, you can get from this show that you couldn't find with a simple trip to your local neighborhood Gamefaqs.com. Nothing. And Strike two is the disgustingly cheerful host, Kristin Holt. My assumption is that G4 wanted to hire some attractive women, as that falls under the category of 'things nerds like to look at', but Miss Holt, in my professional opinion, has NEVER SEEN A VIDEO GAME IN HER LIFE." He's already posted the second part of his outing, and G4 has a response to his project on their website.
The G4 channel is missing the hardware/software hacking stuff big time. They need that public-access feel. Forget that hot girl, get some guy with an spf 3000 tan in front of a wall of machines with a hand scanner securty system in his basement. The opening shot where he says 'Not now mom, I'm on the air! So anyways, check this out...' lets you know you're about to see something incredible.
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I got rid of that channel when they eliminated the rest of the old TechTV programming - I still fail to see the business model behind G4. I probably should've gotten rid of it earlier - it seems the only thing I can remember was how turned off I was on the entire channel. G4 wanted to buy the audience, rather than figure out why, perhaps, that their channel sucked so badly in the first place that it's got very few subscribers. Once the TechTV shows started being infected, well... I can't stand 10 minutes of that channel now, nevermind 24. I think CPAC (Canadian version of C-SPAN) would be more bearable to watch. And G4 Canada was considered the saner channel.
Programming about games done in a style that attracts teens and younger? Who these days use the 'net for the same content? At least TechTV inspired an older generation of people who still rely on "old media" (TV/radio/newspaper/magazines) just as much as "new media" (Internet - web/blogs/etc).