G4-TechTV merger is really backward
If you're a TechTV fan you know that Comcast bought the network to combine it with their own G4 network, creating the combined G4-TechTV. In the process, they cut a lot of the TechTV shows and laid-off a ton of people at the San Francisco location. Those that survived have to move to L.A.
Now that they're operating together, I can only help but feel that the merger was about as ass backward as can be. Most of the G4 shows suck. How? Let me count the ways.
First of all, it's a total sausage fest. There are a lot of very smart female tech geeks, and frankly they're more interesting for boy geeks to watch. G4 apparently had none. TechTV had many, and we've grown to love them. The only female I've seen on a G4 show so far is Julie from Real World New Orleans, and she's surprisingly not bad.
The production values suck. The shows have audio levels all over the place, poor audio quality, poor editing, amateur graphics, etc. Not impressed.
Did I mention that the air “talent” is generally terrible?
The merger should've gone the other way. I sure hope the programming execs from TechTV have some say in the future of the combined network, because whatever the G4 people have been doing is not going to help grow the network. It should be interesting to see how things go next week when The Screensavers moves to L.A.
The strongest shows on the network are TechTV shows. The Screensavers, X-Play and Unscrewed are good stuff. Damn shame they let go of Call for Help (and Leo Laporte for that matter).
A lot of this makes me wish that I was still working in broadcast. I'm not really applying my media savvy to the Web the way that I should, but it's just not the same medium as TV.