G4 cancels both X-Play and Attack of the Show

[Enterprise is Great]

None of this matters to me. I have DirectTV and they dropped G4 a couple of years ago.

[TREK_GOD_1]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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Haha geez. Those are the two best things the channel has to offer, not that it's much, but still, without it, the channel doesn't have much left. Yeah, I think I heard Comcast was going to cancel the channel and rebrand it.

Hopefully, it is more than a name change (unlike the Sci-Fi Channel to "Syfy" like that meant anything).

I've never been impressed with AOTS. It's always been immature and obnoxious, and they'd always talk down to the viewers.

Good call; they always reminded me of a few people I know who work for Comic Con International: they want to act like industry insiders (i.e. high level employees for the major entertainment companies), but they are nothing more than mouthpieces/cheerleaders believing they are "with" the creatives, when that is far removed from the truth. That's the vibe I picked up on from some AOTS hosts over the years.

If the entire channel gets a reboot, I wonder how many former on-air "talent" will end up on HGTV, Spike, or some online show?

[Owain Taggart]

TREK_GOD_1 wrote:

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Good call; they always reminded me of a few people I know who work for Comic Con International: they want to act like industry insiders (i.e. high level employees for the major entertainment companies), but they are nothing more than mouthpieces/cheerleaders believing they are "with" the creatives, when that is far removed from the truth. That's the vibe I picked up on from some AOTS hosts over the years.

Yeah, very true. I got that vibe too, though it's most likely the producers that are at the root of the problem, as the hosts have always been consistently annoying. They remind me of some comedians who think they're funny, when in reality they're cluelessly uninformed as to what they're making fun of. What added to that air of superiority was how loud they were. Seriously, it sounded like they were shouting most of the time. Because they can do no wrong when they're shouting, apparently.

If the entire channel gets a reboot, I wonder how many former on-air "talent" will end up on HGTV, Spike, or some online show?

Well, seeing as Adam Sessler has already went to Spike after he was let go, I could perhaps see Morgan Webb doing the same thing. Maybe they'll do a similar game review show for Spike? With them doing the VGAs every year, it seems like it would be a good fit for them.

[The Grim Ghost]

I spent a little time over the last few days looking at G4 now and then just out of curiosity.

What an odd channel. I guess the idea of the channel is to cater to young, tech savvy people. But they only have two shows that have any focus on that at all, AOTS and XPlay.

Then they have a lot of shows that don't really seem to cater to a young demo at all. Quantum Leap and Cops seem to be on a lot. Are teens and 20s age range interested in that? With campus cops, are college kids interested in seeing their peers arrested?

Maybe younger people might be interested in Ninja Warrior...

Anyway no surprise that the channel is tanking, I've deprogrammed it and see no point in checking back.

[Alidar Jarok]

I remembered when I first saw G4, I thought it was kind of cool. Then I realized they did not possibly have enough material to support a channel. When they started adding other content, I kind of appreciated it because I figured it had a chance to make the show viable. But even then, I'd have to be bored and flipping through channels and catch X-Play or else odds are I wouldn't see the channel for months at a time. I think my only thought is they might as well just change the name too because there's no connection at all to the old channel.

[ryan123450]

I'll admit that I love the idea of what G4 could be far more than I like the channel as it is. Hopefully the rebranded channel with be far better.

[Owain Taggart]

The Grim Ghost wrote:

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I spent a little time over the last few days looking at G4 now and then just out of curiosity.

What an odd channel. I guess the idea of the channel is to cater to young, tech savvy people. But they only have two shows that have any focus on that at all, AOTS and XPlay.

Then they have a lot of shows that don't really seem to cater to a young demo at all. Quantum Leap and Cops seem to be on a lot. Are teens and 20s age range interested in that? With campus cops, are college kids interested in seeing their peers arrested?

Yeah, definitely an odd channel now, but it's mostly a skeleton of what it used to be. It had a lot of good stuff on there at the time, where now it's mostly filler. The problem is when they merged. G4 and TechTV had completely different demographics, to the point that they were incompatible with each other, and I don't see how it could have worked. The start of the merger was more promising than what it ended up being, as The Screensavers was still on the air, but then they cancelled that and rebranded it as AOTS, and the tone was completely different and more in your face.

The only sweetspot in all of that is that in Canada, we were getting a new version of Call for Help, and then The Lab with Leo, which they didn't bother showing in the U.S version of the channel, so it offset the sour taste of AOTS.

[The Grim Ghost]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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Yeah, definitely an odd channel now, but it's mostly a skeleton of what it used to be. It had a lot of good stuff on there at the time, where now it's mostly filler. The problem is when they merged. G4 and TechTV had completely different demographics, to the point that they were incompatible with each other, and I don't see how it could have worked. The start of the merger was more promising than what it ended up being, as The Screensavers was still on the air, but then they cancelled that and rebranded it as AOTS, and the tone was completely different and more in your face.

The only sweetspot in all of that is that in Canada, we were getting a new version of Call for Help, and then The Lab with Leo, which they didn't bother showing in the U.S version of the channel, so it offset the sour taste of AOTS.

I think a big problem with the idea is that most young people probably don't watch a lot of TV anymore. A lot of the younger people I know don't have cable, they watch their favorite shows through netflix or hulu. And if they are interested in getting tech news, video game reviews, etc.. they are getting them from blogs and specific websites that do a much better job covering this stuff than g4 ever could.

[Random_Spock]

@ The Grim Ghost: Only watched G4 for the Quantum Leap reruns and now those have seemed to be replaced by Knight Rider ones.

[CorporalCaptain]

I stopped caring about G4 when TechTV merged with G4 and they dropped Thunderbirds reruns. I cheered inside when my cable provider dropped it from basic programming to make room for a blank channel.

[Owain Taggart]

The Grim Ghost wrote:

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I think a big problem with the idea is that most young people probably don't watch a lot of TV anymore. A lot of the younger people I know don't have cable, they watch their favorite shows through netflix or hulu. And if they are interested in getting tech news, video game reviews, etc.. they are getting them from blogs and specific websites that do a much better job covering this stuff than g4 ever could.

Yeah, the market is definitely different now than when the channel first started. Youtube and blogs didn't exist back then