WEBVTT - The TechTV Story 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.880 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.599 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.000 I Heart Radio and How Stuff Works and I love 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.720 all things tech. And today I'm going to do the 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.720 first of a couple of episodes. Actually, this one, I'm 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.400 going to talk about a cable television channel that was 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:35.720 geared toward a tech savvy audience, specifically computer nerds. It 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:40.560 was a channel that included reviews, how to guides, interactive programs, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.960 and a bunch of stuff that really geeky computer nerds 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.360 like yours truly would really be interested in. It was 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.760 an attempt to build out some niche programming that ultimately 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.280 lasted about six years before things would change dramatically and 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.240 the channel would get merged into a different niche oriented 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.600 cable chan annel. So today we're going to talk about 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.200 tech TV, and in our next episode, I will cover 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.400 the story of G four TV, the channel that tech 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.760 TV would get merged into in two thousand four. So 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:17.199 spoiler alert for that, I guess uh. I will attempt 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.080 to tell all of G four's story, including what happened 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.080 after the merger in one episode. We'll see if that 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.360 pans out, because a lot happened in those years. So 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.120 one thing I do want to mention is that these 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:35.840 episodes were a little challenging to research simply because a 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.559 lot of the information about them happened to be online 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:44.560 on their own websites, and once those channels ceased to exist, 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.360 because neither of them are around anymore, a lot of 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.400 that web based material just kind of lapsed. People didn't 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:57.080 maintain the sites, companies stopped paying for hosting fees, and 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:01.320 a ton of information disappeared. And I our databases, and 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.560 I went through the Internet archive and I looked at 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.040 lots of different stuff to get a kind of a 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.240 big picture of what was going on. And I should 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:13.320 also mention that a lot of the decisions made both 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:18.000 at tech TV and G four resulted in a lot 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:23.040 of hurt feelings among the employees there, and as a result, 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.959 there's a lot of um Vitriolic is a good word, 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.600 of hashion. It is another good word. There are a 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:38.200 lot of high emotion type texts and messages and articles 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.040 that were written in blog posts that kind of thing 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.960 that we're written in the wake of both Tech TV 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.960 and G four. So trying to parse all that and 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.000 get to the nuggets of truth that are buried in 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.600 a lot of emotional baggage can sometimes be a bit challenging, 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.120 and it's understandable why there was so much emotional baggage. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.720 We'll get into all of that. So the story of 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:04.519 tech TV starts with a publishing company that was originally 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:09.600 founded by William Ziff Sr. And Bernard Davis way back 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:14.120 in nineteen seven, decades before there would ever be any 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.840 dream of a cable television channel. Obviously, the original name 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:23.360 for this publishing company was Popular Aviation Company, named after 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.680 the magazine it published, Popular Aviation, But before very long, 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.680 the founders decided to rename the company and call it 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:36.720 the Ziff Davis Publishing Company. Now, this company largely focused 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:41.600 on hobbyist topics. Hobbyists tend to be a passionate customer base, 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.120 and they tend to have a lot of disposable income 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.160 because hobbies cost money to maintain, and it was relatively 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.120 easy to get companies that catered to hobbyists to advertise 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.560 in those magazines, so it wasn't hard to sell ad space. 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.600 So when we skip ahead a few decades, into the 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.320 nineteen eighties. Because obviously this is not an episode about 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.360 Ziff Davis the publishing company, it should come as a 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.040 little a little surprise to anyone really that the publishing 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.880 company soon explored magazines catering to computer enthusiasts. Ziff Davis, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.839 then under the control of williams If Senior's son, clearly 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.560 William Jr. Purchased the publishing rights to a magazine called 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:26.160 PC Magazine in nineteen two. PC Magazine had just started 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.719 publishing only a few months earlier. This would usher in 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.839 a new era for Ziff Davis, one that was increasingly 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.240 connected to the world of technology. That wasn't necessarily by choice. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.120 Zif the younger had developed cancer and he wished to 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.200 simplify the magazine empire of Ziff Davis in the early 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:49.600 nineteen eighties. By that time, the publishing company was enormous, 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.799 so it would sell off two big branches of the company. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:58.360 One was the Consumer Group Magazines, which had sold to CBS, 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.440 and the other was the Business Group Magazines, which it 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.719 sold off to Rupert Murdoch. Ziff Davis, the company really 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.480 only held onto the computer magazine titles. PC Magazine would 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:16.160 go into great some might say excruciatingly great detail about 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:20.360 computer specs and recommendations, and it really was not for 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.640 the computer illiterate. It also did quite well, growing to 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.440 become one of the top ten largest magazines in the 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:31.080 US by and if Davis would complement this with other 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:35.560 magazines such as a one called Mac User, so for 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.120 the Mac users out there, not just the PC owners 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.960 and others. And back in the nineteen eighties, the company 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.680 had acquired the Information Access Company, which was an early 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:49.839 electronic publishing organization. It largely oversaw lots of databases that 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.520 were useful for library functions. If Davis would build upon 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.600 this innovation with the development of zif net and electronic 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.200 version of various magazines that the publisher offered to subscribers 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:05.479 of online service providers like American Online or Prodigy, then 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.640 the company became an online service provider of its own 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.840 with the Interchange Online Network, though that would not go 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.680 live before the company would get broken up. Spoiler alert now, 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.560 in case you're not familiar with the termin online service 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.080 provider was sort of a predecessor to the internet service 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.080 providers we use today. The online service providers would offer 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.839 access to a computer network and sometimes limited access to 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.840 the Internet at large, and keep in mind that in 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.400 the very early days there was no Worldwide Web yet, 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.640 so it would usually mean things like email exchanges and 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.440 uh FDP servers that kind of thing. OSPs would provide news, 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.680 entertainment and communication services like email, although depending on the USP, 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.640 you might be limited to sending and receiving email with 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.800 other members of that same online service provider. There wasn't 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:03.160 necessarily interser of us connectivity between different online service providers 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:08.520 in the early days. After Ziff Jr. Would retire, the 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.480 Ziff Davis Publishing Company got broken up a second time. 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.480 The publishing arm would go to an investment firm called Fortsman, 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.480 Little and Company for the princely sum of one point 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:25.560 for billion. With a B dollars, the Soft Bank Corporation 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.200 from Japan would buy a division called Ziff Davis Exhibitors, 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.560 which organized and managed computer trade shows, and the Information 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.320 Access Company would go to the Thompson Corporation and A 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.280 T and T would scoop up the Interchange Online network. Now, 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:45.440 despite this breakup, the publishing arm continued business as usual, 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.720 growing in the process. By it launched a new magazine 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:56.120 called Yahoo Internet Life. Obviously inspired by Yahoo the web portal, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.720 and it was kind of described as the TV guide 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.360 for the Internet. That same year, soft Bank, which you 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.280 know I just mentioned had purchased the exhibitor part of 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:12.520 Ziff Davis back in decided it was gonna try again 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.800 because it had tried to buy the publishing branch but 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.880 got outbid by Fortsman Little. So SoftBank went to Fortsman 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.360 Little and said, tell you what, We'll give you two 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.840 point one billion dollars for the publishing arm. Now keep 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:31.600 in mind Fortsman had purchased this publishing arm for one 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:33.760 point four billion dollars the year before, so this was 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.880 a pretty good deal, you know, turning around and selling 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.679 it for two point one billion dollars. So soft Bank 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:44.200 then took ownership of the Ziff Davis publishing part of 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.040 the business. In as part of the launch of the 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:53.280 MSNBC cable channel, Ziff Davis dipped its corporate toe in 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.920 the waters of TV programming. The company produced an hour 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.679 long show called The Site s I T E. Solo. 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.160 Doda Brian acted as host for the show. She would 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.440 go on to do many amazing things in TV and beyond, 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.079 and she had a motion capture animated sidekick named dev Null, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.520 voiced by a certain Leo Laporte, who would go on 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.679 to become a host on the future tech TV. I'm 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.640 sure it must have been a lot of fun seeing 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:26.199 Leo in that motion capture suit. The site was a 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.559 technology news and culture program that focused primarily on the Internet. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.640 It also had a companion website that complimented the programming 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.120 on the television show. Now. Sadly, the site the TV 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:42.320 show didn't last very long. MSNBC would preempt episodes of 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:46.880 the show in in the wake of Princess Diana's death, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.520 and the show never returned to air. Instead, in MSNBC 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.760 changed formats to become a twenty four hour news channel 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.560 and Ziff Davis would hire back all the staff of 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.360 the show with a new goal. They decided that they 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.360 were going to launch a dedicated television channel, a cable 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.040 channel of its very own, and it was going to 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.520 leverage the expertise it had with its print and web 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:16.120 content and adapted for the medium of television. Now, the 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:21.360 ownership of the channel, which was originally not called tech TV. 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:26.520 The original name was z d TV gets a bit confusing, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.160 so originally it was not the Ziff Davis division of 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.440 soft Bank that would own this channel. Instead, a soft 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:40.360 Bank affiliate holding company called MAC owned the channel. And 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.960 maybe it pays to talk about that a bit, because 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.800 I think the corporate ownership of Ziff Davis gives us 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.400 a little bit of insight into how much or how 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.840 little support initiatives like z d t V would get 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.840 from its corporate overlords. Okay, So soft Bank is an 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:05.960 investment company and it's it's headquartered in Japan. It's publicly 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.520 traded and was and still is led by a guy 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:14.000 named Masa Yoshi. San San owns a large stake of 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.760 soft Bank, and he did it through this holding company 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.040 MAC M a C. And he used companies kind of 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:25.160 like how a magician uses cups and balls. So to 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:30.439 avoid affecting soft Bank's bottom line and thus the value 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.640 of its shares, he used the MAC company to purchase 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:39.600 some of the more risky divisions for acquisitions like Ziff Davis. So, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:41.959 in other words, if it was part of a company 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.760 that made money, it could go to soft Bank because 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.880 that would help boost SoftBank's numbers and it would improve 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.280 the price on the shares. But if it was a 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.800 loss making business, if it was something there's a little 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.120 more risky, MAC would scoop it up because it was 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.440 a private company, and as a private company it could 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.360 sort of eyed those losses. So in other words, all 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.079 the hits would go to soft Bank, all the strikes 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.240 would go to MAC, which could just sort of absorb 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:15.160 it as divisions stabilized. Sun would oversee soft Bank purchasing 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:20.120 those divisions back from Mac, frequently at cost. So essentially 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.960 he was transferring ownership from one company, a private company, 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.280 to another, a public company. So z d t V 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.720 would initially fall under MAC Holdings. That was essentially the 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.320 American version of the Mac company that Saun was using 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:41.040 in Japan, and about a year after that things would change. MAC, 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.679 the Japanese one would get merged into soft Bank, ostensibly 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:50.240 to improve transparency, and if Davis would buy z d 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.600 t V from Mac Holdings in late n But a 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.760 little bit of other stuff happened in between the launch 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.400 of z d t V in early nine d eight 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:06.199 and z if David's purchasing the rights over from MAC Holdings. Now, 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.199 the reason that all of this is important, apart from 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.440 the fact that it illustrates how extremely rich people manipulate systems. 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.800 In order to get even more rich is that for 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.479 a time it hid z d t vs financial performance, 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.200 and I'll get to that in a second. The channel 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:27.000 would launch on May tenth or May eleventh. Really was 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.560 announced on the tenth and really launched on the eleventh, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.160 but it also launched in a very limited distribution. Larry Weinberg, 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.760 who had previously served as president and CEO of a 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.040 cable television company, would sign on as president and CEO 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.120 of z d t V, and originally z d TV 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.840 was only available on a few smaller cable providers like 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.600 clear Vision Cable or Helicon Cable, and Georgia, where I'm from, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.959 there was a little carrier called Teleview that offered it. 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:57.560 I was not a tele of View customer, so I 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.880 actually remained completely ignorant of zd TV and later tech 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.000 tv for quite some time. A bit later in the summer, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.959 of Direct TV and z d TV would put together 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:13.199 a carriage deal that would put the new programming on 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.840 channel two hundred seventy three of the satellite TV service. 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.280 That would also mark the first time that certain people 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.240 in San Francisco, that being Direct TV customers where z 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.760 d t V was actually shot, could finally watch the channel. 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.280 In fact, for a very long time in the z 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.840 d TV tech TV history. Despite the fact that it 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.880 was shot and produced in San Francisco, most people in 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.520 San Francisco had no access to the show. They couldn't 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.760 watch it. The company decided not to publish how many 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.720 households it would reach on its debut, but analysts estimated 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.960 that was likely fewer than a million households. Now, keep 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.000 in mind that meant that the channel would be available 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.760 for fewer than one million households. Presumably, even on the 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.160 households that got the channel, not all of them were 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.480 going to be glued to the television to watch tech 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:10.120 related contents. So we're talking about significantly fewer than one 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.720 million viewers. But you gotta start somewhere. Now. I'll get 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.120 to some of the programs that the channel carried in 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.040 the next section of this episode. But first I want 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:23.720 to mention that in November of just half a year 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.960 after the channel had debuted, a company called Vulcan Ventures 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.720 would invest more than fifty million dollars into z d 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:36.800 t V in exchange for one third ownership of the company. Now, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:41.720 Vulcan Ventures had a famous founder Paul Allen, co founder 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.600 of a little company called Microsoft. This is also around 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.520 the time when Ziff Davis would exercise its options to 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.360 buy z d t V from Mac Holdings. Now I 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.400 mentioned the financial performance a second ago by The Times. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.160 If Davis would buy z d t V from Mac Holdings, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.800 the Ziff Dave subsidiary overall had an operating profit of 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.960 thirty one point one million dollars, and because z d 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:14.239 t V wasn't organized under Zif Davis, the channels operating 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.760 losses would not affect that company's budget sheets, which is 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.040 a good thing, because it turned out that z d 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.400 t V had operated at a loss of forty seven 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:30.200 point five million dollars, which means the channel's losses were 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.240 more than ten million dollars greater than the operating profit 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.080 of the entire Ziff Davis company, including all the magazine publishing, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.880 which is scary. Now. Granted, the launch was at best 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.840 a modest one, and the startup costs of launching a 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.960 cable channel are incredibly high. You could say they're pretty substantial, 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.840 so it would have been remarkable if z d TV 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.200 had turned a profit in its first year. But this 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.040 would create a pretty hefty burden on the little channel 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.160 and for Ziff Davis in general. On the other hand, 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.840 Paul Allen had also made another significant purchase that could 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.639 give the fledgling channel a little bit of a boost. 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:15.919 He had purchased Charter Communications, a cable TV operator, for 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.720 four and a half billion With a B dollars. In 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.160 November of Vulcan Ventures would strike a deal to acquire 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.639 the rest of the shares of z d TV, buying 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.480 it from Ziff Davis. So now it would become wholly 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.240 owned by Vulcan Ventures. The channel would continue with its 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.600 original name for nearly a year more until September two thousand, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.320 when it would rebrand itself as tech TV. Now. I'll 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.399 have more to say about this in just a moment, 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:57.320 but first let's take a quick break. So one thing 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.800 I want to mention before I go into the sorts 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.359 of shows that were on z d t V and 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.040 then tech TV, is a bit of confusion regarding the 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.760 channel and then the company c Net, which is today 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.520 part of CBS. I've seen some videos and read some 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.640 news reports even some articles that conflated c nets purchase 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.040 of z d net, which was a family of websites 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.040 that were operated by Ziff Davis and z d t 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.560 V the television channel. So to clear this up, c 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:33.240 NET purchased z d net and these two things were competitors. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.560 Zd net actually for a while was out performing c 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:40.000 NET back in those days, but it did not include 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.840 the television channel that remained under Paul Allen's general ownership 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.080 through Vulcan Ventures. This did complicate things a little bit 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.400 because up until the acquisition, some of the content from 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.840 z d t V would then be featured on the 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.920 z d net sites, so maybe that's where the confusion 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.400 stems from. Also, Vulcan Ventures, Paul Allen's investment company, at 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.399 one time nearly owned twenty percent of all the shares 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.080 of c NET, but the company, the investment company, had 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.040 begun divesting itself of those shares leading up to the 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.800 purchase of z d TV. That also makes it all confusing. 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.119 But the important thing to remember here is that c 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.240 NET did not at any time acquire z d t 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.040 V and thus tech TV. Now, when the channel went 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.640 on the air, there was a mixture of excitement and 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:34.240 skepticism about its fate. It's a cliche and it's obvious, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:39.639 but was a very different landscape from today. Back in 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.560 less than half of all American homes even owned a computer, 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.200 and only about a quarter of all American households had 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.840 Internet access. So there was a question, and it seemed 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.280 a legitimate one, was there even enough demand to support 0:19:55.640 --> 0:20:01.880 a tech oriented computer NERD targeted twenty for our cable channel, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.320 particularly one that was going to focus heavily on the Internet. Now, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.280 on the flip side of that, the Internet was considered 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:16.120 virgin territory, wide open landscape, just ripe for making your fortune. 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.280 It was like a gold rush, So there was a 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:23.160 lot of optimism about how important the Internet was going 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.919 to be in the very near future. So in that sense, 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:32.400 they were kind of taking a gamble, but they felt 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.480 like it was a gamble that was pretty sure it 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.120 was going to pay off. But let's talk a little 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.240 bit about the programming on the channel. When z DTV 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.639 launched in it had around six hours of programming a 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.160 day that would repeat to create the twenty four hour 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.320 cable TV channel. The programming, most of which was live. 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.480 By the way, they would actually broadcast live for the 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.359 initial uh airing of the shows ran across a pretty 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.000 decent spectrum of the computer experience. There was an on 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:07.199 air tech advice show called Call for Help, and that 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.159 one was aimed at people who are either new to 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.800 computers or only had a little experience with them, hosted 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.960 famously by Leo Laporte. One thing the channel did early 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.480 on was to offer free net cameras or web cameras 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.719 to users who registered on the show's online forums. If 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.199 they wanted to ask a question, they could register, they 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.320 could get a camera sent to them. They would hook 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.320 up the camera and then their web camera footage would 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.040 actually be used in the show. So you do a 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.880 live call, your video would be up on screen as 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.080 you're asking people for computer advice. Let's say that you're 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.800 having an issue with your computer crashing and you're calling 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.240 them to find out what you can do to solve 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.600 this problem. It was a really neat idea and it 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.480 really built a sense of community among the viewers. The 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:52.800 channel also had a half hour show that focused on 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.240 new tech called Fresh Gear UH. There was also a 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.680 money oriented computer show called The the Machine that gave 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.320 users advice on how to leverage computers to do stuff 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.200 like make financial investments. UH. There was also the entertainment 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.800 and news segment that was mostly covered in a show 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:17.760 called Internet Tonight that featured segments about Internet trends, rumors, news, 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.280 They had segments on music, They had segments on memes 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.920 before we called them memes. Funny little side note. While 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:27.800 I was researching this episode, I happened to read an 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:32.040 article that had a fully embedded episode of Internet Tonight 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:36.119 on it. I believe it was for July, so I 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:38.439 watched a good good amount of it just to kind 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.000 of get a feel for what it was like. And 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:45.520 you know, it was a fairly slick production that was 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.640 covering tech news, and I thought it was pretty interesting. 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:52.159 I scrubbed through it and just around nineteen minutes and 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:56.040 thirty seconds or so, it goes into a segment about 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.840 a website that was pretty useful. That website turned out 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:04.160 to how stuff works dot com, which I found really amusing. Obviously, 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:06.879 being someone who had worked for how Stuff Works since 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:12.159 two thousand seven, h seeing a feature from about the 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.440 website really tickled me. Also, boy, the website has come 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:18.680 a long way since those days, but it did make 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:23.480 me chuckle. There was another show called Silicon Spin, hosted 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:28.520 by John C. Dvorak, who was an editor for PC magazine, 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.399 which she will remember, was a magazine published by Ziff Davis. Uh. 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:35.479 He kind of gave an opinion show about technology and 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:38.840 tech news and developments. One of the big shows to 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:42.000 come out of this debut was called The Screen Savers, 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:46.080 another computer oriented show that included reviews, advice, and news. 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.800 This one also was hosted by Leo Laporte and Kate Botello. 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.040 This show, like Call for Help, often include questions from 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:55.360 viewers to help solve issues they were having with their 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:59.240 computer systems, and also would include net camera footage. This 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:02.880 show was more are for intermediate to advanced computer users. 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:07.040 You know, they didn't really pussy foot around talking about 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:11.680 you know, computer terminology and and and tech terms, and 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:14.480 if you didn't know your stuff at least the basics, 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:18.080 you can very quickly get lost. So this was something 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.760 that appealed to a lot of the tech savvy audience 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:23.560 because they felt like they weren't being patronized, they weren't 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:28.120 being talked down to. This show would undergo massive changes 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:33.240 over the following years, usually involving it being dialed back 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:37.640 from being quite so tech heavy to the point where 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:41.159 by the time it was in its final incarnation, you 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:44.960 could argue it was unrecognizable. Now, it was a pretty 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:48.119 bold move to put out this kind of niche oriented 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:51.240 programming out on the air. Now at this time, we're 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:53.400 we're also seeing a lot of other channels that were 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:57.960 catering to specific interests. Channels like MTV had paved the 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:01.120 way for other cable channels that would focus on specific 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:05.000 subject matter, though by this time MTV had already drifted 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:08.560 far away from its origins as music television that is 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:13.040 what MTV used to stand for. Channels like the Learning Channel, 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:16.720 which would later become TLC, and Sci Fi which would 0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:20.440 later become SIFFY, and American Movie Classics which would later 0:25:20.480 --> 0:25:24.600 become a MC, we're all attempting to build audiences using 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:27.760 a sort of laser like focus on subject matter. The 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:31.520 idea was, if you focus on a specific topic, you 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:34.800 can dominate for that topic and you can become the 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:39.000