7 May
2004
7 May
'04
12:18 p.m.
Does the "gamer" lifestyle include classic computers or are we unlikely to
see Sellam on there again?
Comcast Agrees to Purchase TechTV
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Comcast recently announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire
TechTV, a cable network focused on cutting-edge technology and the impact of
technology on daily life, from Vulcan Programming Inc. When the deal
closes, Tech TV will be merged with G4, the Comcast-owned television network
devoted to video games and the "gamer" lifestyle.
7 May
7 May
12:32 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Thompson" <thompson(a)new.rr.com>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 5:18 PM
Subject: Semi OT: Tech TV goes gamer?
Does the "gamer" lifestyle include classic computers or are we unlikely to
see Sellam on there again?
Comcast Agrees to Purchase TechTV
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Comcast recently announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire
TechTV, a cable network focused on cutting-edge technology and the impact
of
technology on daily life, from Vulcan Programming Inc.
When the deal
closes, Tech TV will be merged with G4, the Comcast-owned television
network
devoted to video games and the "gamer"
lifestyle.
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/
All 285 TechTV employees fired, maybe they are just breaking their contracts
to rehire them at minimum wage. For the most part gamers lust after the
latest and greatest equipment, and maybe a few old school systems and
consoles.
12:40 p.m.
On Fri, 7 May 2004, Teo Zenios wrote:
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/
All 285 TechTV employees fired, maybe they are just breaking their contracts
to rehire them at minimum wage. For the most part gamers lust after the
latest and greatest equipment, and maybe a few old school systems and
consoles.
My fucking gawd.
Well, that's timely.
I really can't believe this. Kind of shocking actually. Actually,
*amazingly* shocking.
I mean, what are they going to do? Run Anime for the next 7 days until
they hire new hosts and come up with new shows?
This makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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12:36 p.m.
On Fri, 7 May 2004, Paul Thompson wrote:
Does the "gamer" lifestyle include classic
computers or are we unlikely to
see Sellam on there again?
Comcast Agrees to Purchase TechTV
Thursday, March 25, 2004
It's hard to say what will come of TechTV. The merger is the reason Leo
left The Screen Savers. I suppose he's been around long enough to know
that these sorts of buy-outs only end up being a net negative for the
veterans.
From the press reports, I do know that they plan to
move the main studio
down to LA where G4 is produced. G4 is an obviously inferior
station to
TechTV. At least the impression I got of it when I had Comcast was that
it was pretty lame (one show was one half hour of just virtual "tours"
through video game scenery). If G4 is smart, they'll keep everything as
is in SF and merge whatever good G4 content they have into TechTV and just
continue to build their audience. If they are stupid, or their actions
are inherently aimed at increasing revenues which translates into "being
stupid" to a veteran audience--and "being stupid" is generally the case
with big conglomerates--they'll gut TechTV, close down the SF studio (or
just turn it into a "bureau"), try to move the programming to LA where
the tech scene is a wannabe of the Silicon Valley, and die a slow, painful
death.
Video games are of course the main industry of the computer scene now, or
at least the one that garners the most revenue and advertising dollars
where the typical consumer is involved, so for sure they will try to gear
the station more towards gaming. But if they decide to phase out TechTV's
core programming, which is their computer help shows, it'll be a mistake.
There will always be geeks, and geeks like technology in general, not just
video games.
Anyway, it depends on what their marketing wizards determine is their core
market. I'm sure if people wrote in en masse to suggest that G4/TechTV
keep it's core tech-specific programming then that would make an impact.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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2:06 p.m.
In message <Pine.LNX.4.33.0405071422270.32122-100000(a)siconic.com>
Vintage Computer Festival <vcf(a)siconic.com> wrote:
But if they decide to phase out TechTV's
core programming, which is their computer help shows, it'll be a mistake.
There will always be geeks, and geeks like technology in general, not just
video games.
This is strangely reminiscent of what BskyB (the UK "Sky"
satellite TV co)
did to "[.tv]". First they started it up as "The Computer Channel" and
All
Was Well. A few games shows, but the vast majority of the stuff was actually
of general interest to computer users/geeks (delete as appropriate). The name
got changed to "[.tv]" at some point, but the core programming remained
mostly the same. In August 2000 (or was it 2001?) Sky ditched .tv. Why? "Not
enough viewers" to put it bluntly.
TTBOMK, at least three petitions have been sent to Sky asking them to start
broadcasting the TechTV international feed over the Sky system - Sky's
response? "No". I think one of the petitions had around 250,000 signatures...
Over the past year, Sky have moved onto an "Increase prices, decrease choice
[channels], increase length of advert breaks". Needless to say, the
subscription was cancelled as soon as it came up for payment again.
As an example, when Sky shut down the analogue satellite service (on the
Astra 1 satellites), the cost of a base subscription was around ?8 per month.
Now they've moved over to digital (on Astra 2) it's been upped to ?19 per
month for what is effectively an inferior service. I've no objections to
Sky using MPEG, what really annoys me is that they've pushed far too many
channels onto the satellite. The bitrate is low enoguh to produce noticeable
artifacting.
Nice fact: The Office of Fair Trading investigated Sky's subscription costs
not long ago. Their opinion? "Sky subscription fees are high, but not
excessive". My opinion? Two million subscribers and none of them can be
bothered to look at how much the charges have gone up.
[ Rant mode off ]
Anyway, it depends on what their marketing wizards
determine is their core
market.
Sky's core market seems to be the "couch potato" market, i.e.
"I'll watch
whatever's on just because it's on." Their basic response to every single
criticism seems to be "Ignore it and it'll go away".
Damn marketdroids...
I'm sure if people wrote in en masse to suggest
that G4/TechTV
keep it's core tech-specific programming then that would make an impact.
This
may sound a bit cynical but, well, don't be so sure... My experience of
these companies is that they ignore basically everything that their customers
say, unless it makes significant financial sense to listen. If they were
going to lose, say, 10,000 out of 1million viewers, they'd ignore every one
of the 10,000. If they were going to lose 750,000 out of 1mil, they *might*
listen. Which brings us neatly back to the "couch potato" mentality -
"It's
on so I'll watch it, and I won't complain about the extortionate prices".
Later,
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... Hey! Your Trakball is upside down!
4:09 p.m.
I think in this (as is usually the case) it came down to a financial
decision. Vulcan wasn't making any money off TechTV, which is why they
decided to sell. The sad fact is that TechTV only worked when there was
an enormous tech boom and you had millions of wannabes watching so that
they could keep up with all the latest tech trends. Now that the tech
boom is over and all the carpet baggers have gone back to whence they
came, there is also no longer a real market for TechTV. The only
viewership they have now is the hardcore geeks, and that really isn't
enough to carry an entire station, as the programming additions within the
past year or so have demonstrated ("Conspiracies", "Anime Unleashed",
etc.)
What makes absolutely no sense, however, is why Comcast would buy the
channel, then fire all the talent as well as the crew. Unless they pull
some neat trick out of their ass, they just dumped all their viewership
along with the staff. The reason people watched TechTV, aside from liking
the live programs, is because they were loyal to the hosts, to whom there
was an almost tangible relationship. What is Comcast thinking? Who
knows. But from here and now, it looks like a really stupid, insane move.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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5:09 p.m.
I think in this (as is usually the case) it came down
to a financial
decision. Vulcan wasn't making any money off TechTV, which is why they
decided to sell. The sad fact is that TechTV only worked when there was
an enormous tech boom and you had millions of wannabes watching so that
they could keep up with all the latest tech trends. Now that the tech
boom is over and all the carpet baggers have gone back to whence they
came, there is also no longer a real market for TechTV. The only
viewership they have now is the hardcore geeks, and that really isn't
enough to carry an entire station, as the programming additions within the
past year or so have demonstrated ("Conspiracies", "Anime
Unleashed",
etc.)
Frankly, I never liked Tech TV, and very few of my hardcore geek friends
liked it as well. I think viewership was really low all around.
What makes absolutely no sense, however, is why
Comcast would buy the
channel, then fire all the talent as well as the crew.
They could have purchased it just for the "license". While the cable
channels are not regulated by the FCC like the broadcast stations, some
companies (Infinity, Clear Channel, etc.) do this exact thing to
independent radio stations just to get that "slot". It has nothing to do
with the format, the employees, the listeners, or anything else, for that
matter. Just the fancy bit of paper hanging on the wall.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
5:46 p.m.
On Fri, 7 May 2004, William Donzelli wrote:
Frankly, I never liked Tech TV, and very few of my
hardcore geek friends
liked it as well. I think viewership was really low all around.
I never watched it regularly. However, I appreciated it because it was
one outlet for me to exercise my TV star fantasies :)
They could have purchased it just for the
"license". While the cable
channels are not regulated by the FCC like the broadcast stations, some
companies (Infinity, Clear Channel, etc.) do this exact thing to
independent radio stations just to get that "slot". It has nothing to do
with the format, the employees, the listeners, or anything else, for that
matter. Just the fancy bit of paper hanging on the wall.
Yep, that's probably the case here. Oh well...
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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5:54 p.m.
I never watched it regularly. However, I appreciated
it because it was
one outlet for me to exercise my TV star fantasies :)
I thought your TV star fantasy was to face Sakai in the artichoke battle.
Yep, that's probably the case here. Oh well...
Basically, the broadcast and cable industries are pretty disgusting. Very
disgusting, in fact. I rate Clear Channel worse than Microsoft.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
8 May
8 May
6:17 a.m.
On Fri, 7 May 2004, William Donzelli wrote:
I would lose with artichokes. Make it Salmon and I would whip his silly
artichoke stuffing ass.
I would have to agree with you there 101%.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
I never
watched it regularly. However, I appreciated it because it was
one outlet for me to exercise my TV star fantasies :)
I thought your TV star fantasy was to face Sakai in the artichoke battle. Yep,
that's probably the case here. Oh well...
Basically, the broadcast and cable industries are pretty disgusting. Very
disgusting, in fact. I rate Clear Channel worse than Microsoft. 
7 May
7 May
5:22 p.m.
Regarding the death of TechTV...
This seems a good moment to mention one of those horrible little ideas
most people don't like contemplating, especially when it's phrased this
way:
In television, the viewers are not the customers.
The _advertisers_ are the customers.
The viewers are... the product. :/
-O.-
(Soylent Green _is_ people. <g>)
I'm sure
if people wrote in en masse to suggest that G4/TechTV
keep it's core tech-specific programming then that would make an impact.
This
may sound a bit cynical but, well, don't be so sure... My experience of
these companies is that they ignore basically everything that their customers
say, unless it makes significant financial sense to listen. If they were
going to lose, say, 10,000 out of 1million viewers, they'd ignore every one
of the 10,000. If they were going to lose 750,000 out of 1mil, they *might*
listen. Which brings us neatly back to the "couch potato" mentality -
"It's
on so I'll watch it, and I won't complain about the extortionate prices".
7383
days inactive
7384
days old
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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aw288＠osfn.org -
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philpem＠dsl.pipex.com -
teoz＠neo.rr.com -
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vcf＠siconic.com