Musings on the Death of TechTV…
I’ve talked a little before about TechTV’s “merger” with the craptastic plastic G4 network, both before and after the final merger. Despite my misgivings, I had hoped that some of the spirit of TechTV would continue on at the new, combined network – that, perhaps, there would be one or two shows that remained watchable.
Of course, as quickly became apparent, G4 had bought the company purely to shut it down. First there was the cancellation of most of the TechTV line-up; the move to Los Angeles; the new, generic, plasticized sets for those shows that remained; the systematic hazing-style embarrasment of the TechTV hosts at their new home; and now the much-ballyhooed cancelling of every TechTV show except for “X-Play” and a new, bastardized version of “The Screen Savers.” And it has now been announced that the channel will no longer be G4TechTV come January, but will “return” to being G4.
An insider’s account of the last days of the independent TechTV is available at TheMacMind.
One Friday morning when I got to work, to my horror, the offices were empty. Adam Sessler was the only one at the X-Play area, and needless to say he was not happy. He directed me down to the Conference room, where I saw most of the TechTV staff crammed into what was a large room. Comcast had just announced that they were firing all the staff at TechTV. They also announced that people had until May 14th to re-apply for jobs in LA. As was pointed out by one member of the audience, this was the week of the largest gaming conference in the US, E3. That’s right, G4 were blissfully unaware that the deadline they had set was right in the middle of E3. At this point I wanted to go and punch the new CEO (G4’s CEO). Fortunately for him, I left. I heard later that G4 had extended the deadline to the following week. As Becky Worley said “Chalk that up to CEO Charles Hirschorn. I’ve met with Chuck, the guy has the leadership abilities of a clam, and about the same personality.”My first thought was that Comcast were never interested in the content of our shows, rather they where after the 45 million households where TechTV was being shown. That works out roughly to be $5 per household. Over the following weeks, it seemed that a great cloud had set over TechTV, the jovial, exciting place I had come to know and love was slowly being swallowed by the horror that everyones days were numbered. A couple of weeks later, the last episode of Call for Help aired. The next day that I came into work, it scared me. The lack of Call for Help staff generated a deafening silence throughout the office.
The G4TechTV saga is an example of how media mergers can be bad for the consumers in general. In the end, all the merger succeeded in doing was depriving the viewers of a choice. There was little improvement to G4’s line-up, and the destruction of everything that had made TechTV viewers loyal. Perhaps worst of all is that G4’s audience has been different from that of TechTV from the beginning. TechTV targeted computer users of all ages, featuring shows like “Call For Help” that answered tech questions of all sizes. G4, on the other hand, has targeted the gadget-heavy middle-to-upper class young white male with expendable income and an uncomfortable gangsta fetish. The kind of person who will honestly believe that Pringles are the gamer’s chip of choice because it gets less grease on their hands, and who will be convinced to buy a game because Jenna Jameson giggles and bounces as she declares it the sexiest game of the year.
Ah, well – apparently, hard work and community building doesn’t really matter in the media when your competitor ultimately has more money.