G4 Station is Being Canceled

The newer version of American Ninja Warrior was pretty much just like the Japanese one. No teams or any of that - they actually re-built the entire course in Las Vegas and had 200 people try to make it through it. All 4 stages, too.

If anything, it was probably better than the Japanese one because there were more qualified athletes giving it a try. While amusing, the octopus guy, former sumos, comedians, etc. are really just wasting everyone's time.
 
The station hasn't been good since Screen Savers and Call for Help. Leo was the fuckin' man! Leo + Patrick on Screen Savers were awesome too.
 
chameleoneel said:
I don't want to derail this thread too much, but I was actually surprised at how little they changed American Ninja Warrior from the Japanese show. It seriously is a pretty direct interpretation and maintains the core spirit. and with the way they handled the first season, we now have some recognizable faces and they pretty often show us that it has become a community, where a lot of the contestants train together.

the biggest problem, is that the american broadcasts often seem to strive to ignore the fact that this came from Japan and there are people doing this in Japan, also. Olympic broadcasts have similar problems. American sportscasting has always been self centered. I'd like to see Japan get together a group of people to send to American Ninja Warrior. Then we could have crossover on both sides and the contestants would have two chances per year at competing.
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I didn't like the bracket bullshit, team garbage or all the nonsense they added to it. The commentators are also extremely annoying. The Japanese version had none of that. You tried out, made it as one of the 100 contestants and got your shot. You were eliminated immediately if you fell in the water or ran out of time where applicable. Simple.
 
I enjoyed AOTS at times , it wasn't half bad. Kevin at least understood technology (although he was an Apple fanboy he still understood what was required to stay up to date) and the moments where he actually harped on the girls of G4 were pretty amusing.

That's not to say I would give my left nut for TechTV to come back. Much better content that actually targeted its ideal audience.

But G4 has been dieing for years , after getting dropped by Direct TV entirely the writing has been on the wall. I think some of you are going overboard though , they are not canceling it .. its got 2-3 originally programmed shows and airs nothing else but reruns of Cops/Lost/Hero's. I'm sorry but that's not a network , that's like non-on demand video service with limited choices. Dumping the network entirely wouldn't exactly be smart when they do actually get an audience to tune in.

I've never really cared for X-Play because I almost always disagree with their review scores (Adam rarely reviewed games himself , neither does Morgan so what you get are *ghost* writer reviews which I do not care for) and I find they are biased towards some developers (Capcom for AGES) but it really makes sense why Adam left , why Kevin left and why Chris left. Who knows what G4 will be in 2013 , I would imagine that it'll be somewhat different but retain a majority of the live staff from AOTS and just put them into a segmented show instead of a hour live 5 days week which is complete hell.

At this point if they brought back Code Monkey's and Icon's and scraped the rest I would be happy.
 
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G4 was still around? I seen the end of that station years ago.
 
AOTS at the 7pm hour when there's nothing else on and i don't feel like gaming.
Movies that don't suck. almost always has a good movie playing.

If there is anything else this station plays I'm not aware of it.

COPS marathons don't count, its just filler.
 
SkullE said:
AOTS at the 7pm hour when there's nothing else on and i don't feel like gaming.
Movies that don't suck. almost always has a good movie playing.

If there is anything else this station plays I'm not aware of it.

COPS marathons don't count, its just filler.
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On Movies that "don't suck" they often show Robocop 3. This is definitely not a good movie.
 
where will i see my live e3 events now on tv? I do miss the old tech tv, but i always tuned in to g4 JUST for e3 and other events. No other network does this excpet spike and the coverage sucks and is only an hour long.
 
Good...no more Kevin, no more Frankenstein Morgan Webb, no more Sara Underwood. I'd like to personally thank the individual at NBC Universal who made this decision.

BTW, all you TechTV fans, most of the old hosts have shows on TwitTV (http://twit.tv/). Its Leo Laporte's latest venture that started in 2005 and recently moved to an upgraded studio. Also, there are a few former TechTV people on Revision3 (http://revision3.com/). I know Patrick Norton has a few shows on Revision3.
 
I too missed TechTV. I loved the screen savers. Leo was my favorite.

And they always had new rigs being built.

Screw G4, they ruined it for everybody.
 
Morgan Webb should just go do her own shit. I'm sure she could market herself.
 
I found Tech TV in the heyday of 2001 when they were reviewing Windows XP and stuff. THE SCREEN SAVERS was part of my daily routine for a while. Leo, Patrick, Kevin Rose, and Morgan Webb were the core of it if I remember correctly. Along with the skinny guy with a really acerbic wit. And then you had Chris Pirillo with his nervous energy. Such a quirky and fun show while it lasted.
 
only thing i'll miss is ninja warrior.. but then again thats what we have internet for can watch directly from japan :)

honestly though i never once liked g4 aside from that all boring stuff and to focused on console gaming(<= hate consoles..)
 
Once G4 took over TechTV I just stopped watching them. Before that all happened, I was able to get a signed T-Shirt from Leo Laporte & Patrick Norton from a local mall (where I grew up) years ago.
 
I've always hated G4, even more so when they started bringing "Cops", "Cheaters" and similar rerun filth onto the network, so I'm not sad to see them go. However, to see a rebrand as a "men's network" is absolutely horrid. SpikeTV already does that and does it as well as can be expected from such a stereotype. However, I'm of the opinion that trying to skew towards "male xx-xx" and "female xx-xx" demographics, especially on niche channels, have been the most destructive towards actual programming quality.

Take the "rebrand" from "The SciFi Channel" to "SyFy: Imagine Greater", where the network president said "SciFi says nerds in their basements and we don't want nerds in their basements, the ready made demographic who are consistent Instead, we want the average woman 18-35." And thus, here come all the "tangentially fantasy, scifi, or supernatural" shows that skew towards a female audience, basically with interpersonal relationships as the core element. This is where Ghost Whisperer and all the "ghost finding" properties come in, and even original programming like the new Battlestar Galactica (one of the most odious sucker-punches in its ending, that is DIRECTLY a result of courting this new audience.) and THE STARGATE SHOW THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED seem more like soap operas set a dressing of space and scifi. Even decent shows like Eureka and Warehouse 13 are obviously designed specifically to encompass a female audience, as opposed to just being great scifi that targets scifi viewers regardless of gender. Compare these properties even to older SciFi channel staples as "The Real Stargates", Farscape etc... and despite those shows being highly regarded with female sci-fi fans, the network didn't want that - they wanted to capture "the average female" and create their new content to pull in that market with the minimal scifi dressing as possible.

This kind of move is almost never a good change. Discovery, History, and Learning channel groups have all but been gutted, replaced with "Say Yes to the Dress/I Found The Gown" and the insult to existence that is "Tottlers and Tiaras", which spawned "Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo". Discovery Health has basically become the "Havin' Babies and Women In Distress" channel. History is showing Ice Road Trucker, Lumberjack and other "male focused" reality shows. You have to go to H2 to get any semblance of history - when most of us cried out for H to stop being exclusively The Hitler Channel: Showing WWII the Last War In Which The USA Kicked Ass Unambiguously, we didn't want this! So far The Science Channel and The Military Channel seem to at least keep a certain level of purity that used to be common with TLC/Discovery etc.. but I wonder how long that will continue. Whenever a niche channel decides they want to widen their viewership, especially by attracting "the average American man/woman" , it almost always means that they're going to water down their niche into homogenous lowest-common denominator programming that they can stretch to suggest is still relevant to their network.

Back in the old days I liked some of TechTV's programming and I think there could be a solid viewership for a modern gaming and/or geek culture network, but it would need to be 1) timely. Nightly shows like The ScreenSavers talked about big things happening in tech that day. That kind of stuff is necessary - you slow down on the stuff that needs to be rapid, your audience has already gotten it from the net. 2) Offer something new and interactive; have a call-in/VOIP/SMS show for instance that lets people participate and comment 3) Offer analysis as objective as possible. A round up of today's tech headlines should not be skewed exclusively to advertisers which leads me to 4) The network cannot be one long commercial. The audience will give up if only major AAA titles are reviewed with a score of 8.5 or better, and Apple gadgets are always given hours-long release count down shows while others are ignored. 5) Wide ranging. Don't focus exclusively on say, console gaming or the aspects of the culture that some bean counter feels are going to be the most profitable. Make lots of new shows (maybe a comics discussion forum here, a game one there, have a show exclusively for MMO content tutorials and walkthroughs that players can submit their guild's showing etc...) but don't dilute the network like G4 did with filling gaps with unrelated crap. These are just the basics I think for creating a new tech network, but there's a lot more to consider. I don't have any hope the "new" G4 will be anything like this, but..its nice to think such a thing could be possible.
 
I still watch Leo streaming online. The Screen Saver needs to come back!
 
Shame no one seems to remember or even watched Code Monkeys. Best 8-bit cartoon series their ever was! It's on Netflix Instant and sadly only lasted 2 seasons.
 
FreiDOg said:
Oh dear, now where will I watch reruns of Cops, Cheaters and Quantum Leap?!
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I like on COPS how they have the moderated live chat.
One of my comments got on air once..
my login handle was STU PODASSO
good stuff.

Call for Help with Leo Laporte was one of my favorite segments. Some of the more recent shows seem like they are trying too hard.
 
GOOD. I hate that fucking channel. It was only marginally good with kevin perrera and olivia munn before they sold out. It was the pinnacle of computer tv when it was ZDTV and TechTV however. ;)
 
G4 was noobified, even their more tech centric website is noobified, when sessler left, the last shred of nerd cred they had left with him.
 
When Leo Laporte and the Screen Savers left the network, so did I :p
 
I miss Sara Lane. Adam Sessler (aka the real life Butters) leaving killed the last shred of decency they had left. It was nice seeing the E3 coverage but that's generally a circle jerk on there anyway now since Sessler's gone. I love that guy. First gamer interviewer I've seen that wasn't afraid to call out a guest on BS.

Morgan Webb is a man and Olivia Munn is not that hot. And Kevin Pereira is a huge tool.
 
Anyone that wants to catch Leo tomorrow he will be live streaming the iPhone 5 announcement. Patrick has dropped in on his live steams in the past and Kari Byron is normally on them. Be like The Screen Savers old times.
 
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