TechTV

This article is about the television channel. For the video production company, see Tech TV (video production company). For the television network in Louisiana, see TechTV (Louisiana Tech University).
TechTV
Launched May 11, 1998 (1998-05-11)
(as ZDTV)
Closed May 28, 2004 (2004-05-28)
Owned by Ziff Davis, Inc.
Vulcan Inc.
Country United States
Language English
Affiliates KTQW-CA
Formerly called ZDTV (1998–2000)
Replaced by G4

TechTV was a 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming. At the height of its six-year run, TechTV was broadcast in 70 countries, reached 43 million households, and claimed 1.9 million unique visitors monthly to its website.[1] A focus on personality-driven product reviews and technical support made it a cultural hub for technology information worldwide, still existing today online through its former hosts' webcasts, most notably the TWiT Network and Revision3.

The offices were located at 650 Townsend Street, 94103,[2] and the studios, of which there were two, were located at 535 York Street, 94110.[3]

Names

It originally was called ZDTV by its founder, Ziff-Davis, when it debuted on May 11, 1998. It later was owned by Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures. Vulcan Ventures sold TechTV to G4 Media (owned primarily by Comcast), which merged it with the video game channel G4 in May 2004 to form G4techTV. In February 2005, the name was changed back to G4, eliminating TechTV from the name completely.

Show personalities

The personalities of TechTV include Kate Botello, Roger Chang, Yoshi DeHerrera, John C. Dvorak, Carmine Gallo, Ali Hossaini, James Kim, Kris Kosach, Pam Krueger, Chris Leary, Chi-Lan Lieu, Jim Louderback, Tom Merritt, Megan Morrone, Patrick Norton, SuChin Pak, Bill Rafferty, Kevin Rose, Martin Sargent, Catherine Schwartz, Adam Sessler, Laura Swisher, and Morgan Webb.

Many former hosts of TechTV programs have gone on to create new programs distributed online: Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech, Chris Pirillo's live.pirillo.com, Systm, thebroken, From The Shadows, commandN, Diggnation, Infected with Martin Sargent, DL.TV, CrankyGeeks, InDigital, East Meets West, and Weezy and the Swish are some of the shows produced by alumni.

Leo Laporte hosted Call for Help which aired until April 6, 2007. It was revamped and renamed The Lab with Leo Laporte and was shown on G4techTV Canada and the Australian HOW TO Channel. The show was filmed in HD and Laporte hoped to have it picked up by an American network. The series has since been cancelled due to poor ratings.

Kevin Rose, who worked on "Screen Savers" and "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent", co-founded Digg which he featured on "Screen Savers" in 2004 ,[4] was hired by Google in March 2012, along with many of the employees at Rose's mobile app incubator called Milk.[5]

Former personalities

Virtual characters

Many of the founding staff of ZDTV had previously worked on MSNBC's The Site, which featured Dev Null, a virtual animated character voiced by Leo Laporte who interacted with host Soledad O'Brien. Improving on the technology used for Dev Null, ZDTV created two animated virtual characters who appeared as hosts for the network. Dash (voiced first by Paul McKinney and later by Patrick Flick and Chris Manners, with body performance by Slater Penney) and Tilde (voiced by Kate Botello and later by Laura LeBleu, with body performance by Slater Penney) appeared in on-air and online promos for the network. Dash also appeared as a virtual correspondent on the show Internet Tonight in a segment called "The Homepage Hall of Fame" and briefly as the host of "Dash's Animation House."[6]

History

ZDTV

ZDTV logo

The channel originally launched on Monday May 11, 1998, in Las Vegas, Detroit, parts of Georgia near Atlanta and parts of Maine.[7] Vulcan Ventures first invested in ZDTV, a network that supplemented content from Ziff-Davis' computer and technology based print publications (at the time including PC Magazine, MacWEEK, and eWEEK), in November 1998, acquiring a one-third interest from Ziff-Davis. In November 1999, Vulcan purchased the remaining two-thirds in a transaction that was completed on January 21, 2000. The deal (which permitted Vulcan to temporarily continue using the "ZD" initials and "red diamond" logo) was worth approximately $204.8 million.

Beginning on Saturday August 1, 1998, ZDTV was broadcast in its native San Francisco, when the channel struck a deal with DirecTV to become available on Channel 273, via the providers' satellite dishes.[8]

In July 2000, it was announced that ZDNet would be acquired by CNET, placing ZDTV in the awkward position of using the initials and logo of a company that soon would belong to its main TV programming rival. However, a new name was already being worked on.

TechTV

On September 18, 2000, ZDTV was renamed TechTV, and a new on-air strategy was announced along with several new series. Soon, TechTV made a huge commitment to enter into live broadcasting when it launched a nine-hour experimental news program called TechLive in April 2001. The show, which catered to daytraders and business types, never caught on with TechTV's geeky audience. In November 2001, following a massive round of layoffs, TechLive was divided into three one-hour shows. In the spring of 2002, TechLive was cut further into just one thirty-minute daily news magazine show, with a focus less on tech news and more on how technology changed people's lives.

Beginning March 15, 2001, TechTV experienced repeated layoffs.[9] In 2002, Silicon Spin (an opinion forum hosted by PC Magazine editor John C. Dvorak from the original ZDTV in May 1998) and AudioFile (a show for digital audio enthusiasts launched in August 2000) were canceled, but 2003 saw the introduction of several new shows (such as Performance, Robot Wars, and Unscrewed with Martin Sargent). "Internet Tonight" was to be replaced by TechLive, but new shows created by repackaging old segments were run for several months after TechLive debuted.

In late 2001 and early 2002, many Comcast cable systems dropped TechTV from their channel lineups. At the time, some viewers speculated that this was done to eliminate a competitor to the Comcast-owned G4. When Comcast's G4 Media acquired TechTV and merged it with G4 in 2004, a second theory emerged, which suggested that Comcast's actual motive was to lower TechTV's value, and ultimately its asking price.

TechTV was also broadcast over the air on KTQW in Wichita, Kansas until the TechTV name was dropped during the G4 merger.[10]

In Davenport Iowa from early 2001. St. Ambrose University carried the show feed for most the day and early evening on their cable channel. For a short time after the change to G4TechTV it still carried the feed. It was dropped after complaints about some of the G4 later programming. It was also carried full-time on a digital access channel. For a while after the merger both channels were in the list even though the same programming was seen on both.

A Canadian version of TechTV launched on September 7, 2001, as a joint venture of TechTV, Rogers Media, and Shaw Communications. The channel would later become G4techTV Canada to coincide with the American merger of TechTV and G4. The channel would change its name once again in mid-2009 to G4 Canada. In 2004, TechTV launched on Foxtel Digital in Australia. After the merger with G4, TechTV (then called G4techTV) left Australia lineups as its international feed ceased. On Malaysia's ASTRO platform, repeats of the international feed was run for some time after the international feed ceased before starting to import G4TV programming and retransmitting them locally. In Japan, Sony's So-net channel aired several TechTV programs until the fall of 2005 (they aired reruns after May 2004). In New Zealand, TechTV aired on Saturn Communications's channel 34 until May 2004. In addition to those countries, TechTV had existence in Russia and the United Kingdom.

Merger and consolidation

On March 25, 2004, Comcast's G4 gaming channel announced a merger with TechTV. This move became hugely controversial among loyal fans of TechTV and Leo Laporte, who, because of a contract dispute with Vulcan, left the channel. Shows with Laporte, including The Screen Savers and Call for Help, continued on with remaining staff taking over his hosting duties.

Around May 6, G4 announced the termination of 250 employees from the San Francisco office by July 16, 2004, allowing approximately 80 to 100 employees to transition to G4's main office in Los Angeles if they agreed to relocate there.[11] Shows from TechTV that weren't redundant to G4's offerings continued on until July, when the closing of the TechTV Offices would close the respective stages for these shows in turn.

On May 10, 2004, G4 Media completed the acquisition of TechTV from Vulcan. G4techTV was launched in the U.S. on May 28, 2004. This led to the cancellation of many of the TechTV channels throughout carriers across the world (e.g.: systems with both channels active, systems limiting Comcast's number of channels on their lineup, etc.) On January 3, 2005, TechTV International began airing select programs from G4techTV. After the closure deadline passed on July 16, 2004, only Los Angeles produced shows would air on the new channel. The final production originating at TechTV in San Francisco was the September 2, 2004, episode of The Screen Savers (which was taped on July 16, 2004).

On February 15, 2005, the TechTV brand was dropped from the United States G4techTV feed, leaving the network name as G4 – Video Game Television which also echoed the changes in programming made to the channel due to the merger for both G4's original offering and the greatly diminished TechTV originated shows (exceptions noted below); since then, G4 has gone through a rebranding and has changed all programming current and future to position itself as a male oriented network.

TechTV shows and personalities who survived the merger

The Screen Savers survived somewhat in Attack of the Show!, remaining an open-format hosted talk show. On March 17, 2005, the staff made an announcement that they intended to reformat The Screen Savers to better fit the network, including the change of its name (a computer term for a program to protect a monitor from burned-in imagery, which no longer fit when The Screen Savers stopped covering computer self-help and DIY programming). It changed to Attack of the Show (a reference to the Star Wars prequel "Attack of the Clones"), and while still covering technology to a lesser extent, it also covers autos, sports, movies, new products and pop culture. Kevin Rose, Sarah Lane, and Brendan Moran stayed on after the transition to Attack of the Show for a short time, but Rose left on May 27, 2005, and both Lane and Moran left after their marriage on April 6, 2006, marking the final TechTV on-camera staff's exit from the program. Kevin Pereira was the sole staff member who was present after the show moved to Los Angeles and remained host of Attack of the Show with other post-merger G4 staff until his departure, May 31, 2012.

Seven TechTV personalities, Kevin Rose, Sarah Lane, Morgan Webb, Adam Sessler, Chi-Lan Lieu, Blair Butler and Brendan Moran relocated to Los Angeles to join G4. Only two TechTV shows, Anime Unleashed and X-Play, survived the merger without any major changes. Anime Unleashed (and in turn, all of the anime series which aired on the block) was canceled in March 2006. X-Play was the last TechTV-created show in production under G4 until it was announced in late 2012 that it and Attack of the Show would both be cancelled in December 2012.

In April 2012, Sessler parted ways with G4. A proper reason was not given, however there have been rumors of a contractual dispute.[12] Sessler was the last of the original hosts from the initial launch of ZDTV in 1998. When the network withdrew all their live programming in December 2012, Butler and Webb were the only remaining TechTV personalities working at G4.

Programs

This is a list of programs broadcast by TechTV:

Reunion

A possible TechTV reunion was announced by Leo Laporte in his blog on July 21, 2006. Further details were also announced by Chris Pirillo on his blog. Nothing further has been mentioned about a reunion of TechTV staff since 2006. Leo and Patrick Norton however did team up for a final skit on the series finale of Attack of the Show.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Stacie D. Cramer (June 17, 2004). "TechTV Fans Mad as Hell". Wired News. Retrieved January 4, 2007.
  2. ↑ http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/A-Day-in-the-Life-of-ZDTV-s-The-Screen-Savers-2930362.php
  3. ↑ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ZIFF-DAVIS+TO+PREVIEW+'THE+SITE'+AT+SAN+FRANCISCO+STUDIO-a018453178
  4. ↑ Olanoff, Drew. "Memories: Kevin Rose introduces a "new site" called Digg on December 13th, 2004". The Next Web.
  5. ↑ Gannes, Liz. "Exclusive: Kevin Rose Will Join Google". AllThingsD.
  6. ↑ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Spencer+F.+Katt+to+Report+for+ZDTV.-a055098838
  7. ↑ http://www.zdnet.com/article/zdtv-launches-monday/
  8. ↑ http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Foreign-Temp-Workers-Run-Into-Jam-on-Road-to-3000022.php
  9. ↑ Gwendolyn Mariano (March 15, 2001). "TechTV reorganizes, lays off employees". News.com. Retrieved December 21, 2007.
  10. ↑ KTQW TechTV Website
  11. ↑ Comcast Fires TechTV Staff
  12. ↑ Schreir, Jason. "Adam Sessler Out at G4". Kotaku.

External links

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