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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.

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

A few of the personalities and hosts that were featured on TechTV and G4techTV programming included Leo Laporte, Kate Botello, Patrick Norton, Chris Pirillo, John C. Dvorak, Adam Sessler, Kevin Rose, Martin Sargent, Morgan Webb, Sarah Lane, James Kim, Sumi Das, Alex Albrecht, Stephanie Siemiller, Erica Hill, Victoria Recano, Robert Heron, Cat Schwartz, and Jim Louderback.

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 current shows being produced.

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.

In March 2012, Kevin Rose, who worked on "Screen Savers" and "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent", and then went on to found Digg, was hired by Google, along with many of the employees at Rose's mobile app incubator called Milk. ^[2]

History

ZDTV

ZDTV logo

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.

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 August 21, 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 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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 July 16, 2004 episode of The Screen Savers (which aired on September 2, 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 survives 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). Once it changed to Attack of the Show (a reference to the Star Wars prequel "Attack of the Clones") on March 28, the studio audience was dropped, 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 is the sole staff member who was present after the show moved to Los Angeles and remains host of Attack of the Show with other post-merger G4 staff.

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 remains as the last TechTV created show that is still in production under G4.

In April 2012, Sessler parted ways with G4. A proper reason was not given, however there have been rumors of a contractual dispute.^[6]

As of April 2012, Butler and Webb are the only remaining TechTV personalities working at G4, with Sessler also holding the distinction of being the only host remaining from the initial launch of the TechTV Network in 1998.

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.

See also

• List of programs broadcast by TechTV
• List of TechTV Personalities
• Revision3
• TWiT.tv
• CNET TV, TechTV's primary competition until the 2004 merger with G4. CNET TV once aired syndicated on USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel (SyFy), it now runs as an Online Video network and through On-Demand service with cable and satellite.

References

External links

• TechTV website (redirects to G4 website)
• The TechTV Vault
• Internet Archive of TechTV website
• TechTV at the Internet Movie Database
• UndoTV website (redirects to geeks.pirillo.com)
• ZDTV starts broadcasting – News.com, May 11, 1998
• G4 Canada website, which identified as G4techTV until June 2009. Continued to host Leo Laporte's TV Shows (Call for Help, The Lab) until cancelled in 2008 after sale to Rogers Comm., and shares programming from American produced shows from Comcast, Turner Broadcasting and other networks. Owned by Rogers Communications.
• DigitalLife TV – Targeted to replace the former TechTV network with the original concept, ownership, and hosts. Network went offline in 2009, with all hosts now employed on Revision3.
• Revision3 – A online video network co-founded by Kevin Rose covering Technology. Features Tekzilla with Patrick Norton formerly of The Screen Savers, and diggnation.
• TWiT.TV – (This Week in Tech) Leo Laporte's Podcast and online video network aimed at filling the void left by TechTV. Also hosted This Week in Fun with Sarah Lane and Martin Sargent, until it was put on indefinite hiatus in January 2010.