What Actually Happened to TechTV?

thelancer asks: "Early last year, Australian cable got TechTV. But not for long. It turned out the fix was already in, and TechTV left Australian screens at the end of 2006 when G4 pulled the plug on international distribution. As someone who only got a taste, but desperately wanted more (of what I saw in the first two months, not nearer the end), I've done the rounds and read some stories on the buy out, but nothing has given me the who, when, and the all important why? And they all assume you know the history. Can the Slashdot crowd put together a more complete picture on what really happened at TechTV?"

I miss ZDTV

[Lord Sigma]

I started watching ZDTV back in 1998 when it started and watched all the time. I even got on Call for Help once and was a really good time. I was saddened when they merged with G4 and in my opinion ruined the shows. But nothing good or bad lasts forever I supose.

Re:Yar

[scum-e-bag]

I'm Australian.

Telstra and Optus have rolled out cable in limited metro regions. I don't think there will be any/many more rollouts of cable technology. The push will be with fiber, with FTTH or FTTN. The Tasmanian government had an excellent oportunity to roll out FTTH, however, with all their wisdom they decided that rolling out natural gas to every home in Tasmania would be more than enough in one go and that when people wanted FTTH they would simply dig the streets up again and have another rollout... the biggest oversight in Tasmanian history???

My cable connection is with a few coper wires connected to my phone exchange... I guess it's not cable in the american sense of the owrd, or in the optus/telstra cable sense of the word, but its good enough for me!

BitTorrent is the new distribution medium. The only people who use older services are those who have way to much money or those who lack the technical ability to operate a computer.

My Perspective

[MBCook]

Here is my perspective. I've been watching that channel here in the US for years. I watched it as ZDTV for about a year or two. Here is what I can tell you about the history of the channel.

When it was ZDTV, it was very different. It was all computers (Ziff Davis, after all). They had some of the shows that existed up until recently (The Screen Savers being the prime example). But they also had other programming. I remember a show that showed nothing but computer generated animation that people could send in. A user content show, it was ahead of it's time. It also showed some very neat stuff (as companies would send in neat stuff too to show what they could do). This was how I first found Animusic.

Later, the network changed it's name to TechTV. Not much really changed that I remember. This is the time frame that I remember shows like Fresh Gear (which may have been there before) which was a great gadget review show (TVs, DVD Players, Digital Cameras, random gadgets, etc). I can't remember if X-Play was part of ZDTV or not, but I know it was there during TechTV.

Now it is somewhere in this timeframe that I found out about G4 and I really wanted that channel. An all video game channel, that would be cool. But I had DirecTV (which is where I watched ZDTV/TechTV) and Comcast (which didn't carry G4). I later got to see the channel just a little bit on someone's digital cable and it still looked neat (all I got to see was Cinematech, which was cool).

Now during the TechTV days things changed. I remember Call For Help dumped Leo later during this time (I think CFH was a ZDTV show). The Screen Savers was still their headliner program. Other shows later came on including Invent This! (showed inventors, their inventions, how they came up with it, etc... a fantastic show), Anime Unleashed (showed Anime, both good and bad), and a few other good shows. There were some slips during this time (like trying to turn daytime into a CNN of computer news).

Then G4 decided to buy them. I thought that would be good. I wanted to see G4. I was a little worried (I seem to remember things being better during the ZDTV days, but I can't tell you why). It took about 1 day (and I'm being generous) to figure out what an unmitigated disaster this was. I later found out why G4 bought TechTV.

G4 had no shows people would watch, and was terrible. TechTV was a nice little network and had loyal viewers. What better way to start building your empire than buying out a "rival" and destroying them.

So G4 quickly removed everything on TechTV except a handful of shows. The Screen Savers was still there (I think), although it quickly became Attack of the Show. X-Play stayed on (which is better than ANY show on G4), but they did change their set and now I get the feeling the network big-wigs are trying to infuse the show with more "anime-hip-hop-coolness". All the other great little shows were gone. Fresh Gear was killed. Invent This (which was about a year old, at most) was killed.

So what did we get? Cinematech (a decent of waste of a half-hour, sometimes). We also got Icons (interesting profiles some times, but took it's self way to serious), Cheat (unwatchable), Filter (half intersting, with the worlds most annoying hostess), and that's about it. That's all that came over, that I can think of. Oh, Arena (I don't want to watch other people play FPSes with an annoying commentary by a drill-seargent-wannabe).

Now G4 seems to be trying to become SpikeTV. Now I should note that SpikeTV was much better as whatever it was before, which was much better as TNN. But now G4 has ST:TNG (good), Trek 2.0 (good show, made unwatchable by shot-gunning as many tickers and flashing things on the screen as possible), Totally Outrageous Behavior (immature caught-on-tape), Fastlane (never seen it, no intention to), Brainiac (look! we do cool science stuff and act like immature idiots), Ed The Sock's Night Party ("One angry sock puppet and his blazing hot redhead co-host get down and dirty, and often wet" - Immature, e

Re:Here:

[TrisexualPuppy]

Here is my perspective. I've been watching that channel here in the US for years. I watched it as ZDTV for about a year or two. Here is what I can tell you about the history of the channel.

When it was ZDTV, it was very different. It was all computers (Ziff Davis, after all). They had some of the shows that existed up until recently (The Screen Savers being the prime example). But they also had other programming. I remember a show that showed nothing but computer generated animation that people could send in. A user content show, it was ahead of it's time. It also showed some very neat stuff (as companies would send in neat stuff too to show what they could do). This was how I first found Animusic.

Later, the network changed it's name to TechTV. Not much really changed that I remember. This is the time frame that I remember shows like Fresh Gear (which may have been there before) which was a great gadget review show (TVs, DVD Players, Digital Cameras, random gadgets, etc). I can't remember if X-Play was part of ZDTV or not, but I know it was there during TechTV.

Now it is somewhere in this timeframe that I found out about G4 and I really wanted that channel. An all video game channel, that would be cool. But I had DirecTV (which is where I watched ZDTV/TechTV) and Comcast (which didn't carry G4). I later got to see the channel just a little bit on someone's digital cable and it still looked neat (all I got to see was Cinematech, which was cool).

Now during the TechTV days things changed. I remember Call For Help dumped Leo later during this time (I think CFH was a ZDTV show). The Screen Savers was still their headliner program. Other shows later came on including Invent This! (showed inventors, their inventions, how they came up with it, etc... a fantastic show), Anime Unleashed (showed Anime, both good and bad), and a few other good shows. There were some slips during this time (like trying to turn daytime into a CNN of computer news).

Then G4 decided to buy them. I thought that would be good. I wanted to see G4. I was a little worried (I seem to remember things being better during the ZDTV days, but I can't tell you why). It took about 1 day (and I'm being generous) to figure out what an unmitigated disaster this was. I later found out why G4 bought TechTV.

G4 had no shows people would watch, and was terrible. TechTV was a nice little network and had loyal viewers. What better way to start building your empire than buying out a "rival" and destroying them.

So G4 quickly removed everything on TechTV except a handful of shows. The Screen Savers was still there (I think), although it quickly became Attack of the Show. X-Play stayed on (which is better than ANY show on G4), but they did change their set and now I get the feeling the network big-wigs are trying to infuse the show with more "anime-hip-hop-coolness". All the other great little shows were gone. Fresh Gear was killed. Invent This (which was about a year old, at most) was killed.

So what did we get? Cinematech (a decent of waste of a half-hour, sometimes). We also got Icons (interesting profiles some times, but took it's self way to serious), Cheat (unwatchable), Filter (half intersting, with the worlds most annoying hostess), and that's about it. That's all that came over, that I can think of. Oh, Arena (I don't want to watch other people play FPSes with an annoying commentary by a drill-seargent-wannabe).

Now G4 seems to be trying to become SpikeTV. Now I should note that SpikeTV was much better as whatever it was before, which was much better as TNN. But now G4 has ST:TNG (good), Trek 2.0 (good show, made unwatchable by shot-gunning as many tickers and flashing things on the screen as possible), Totally Outrageous Behavior (immature caught-on-tape), Fastlane (never seen it, no intention to), Brainiac (look! we do cool science stuff and act like immature idiots), Ed The Sock's Night Party ("One angry sock puppet and his blazing hot redhead co-host get down and dir

Channels worth watching:

[drakaan]

I almost agree, but Alton Brown now has three shows on the Food Network, (if you count Iron Chef America)... Say what you want about Emeril, but Paula, Alton, Giada, and a few others help fuel my cooking hobby the same way TechTV (bless it's dead and rotting soul) once appeased the geek in me.