WEBVTT - Rerun: The Rise and Fall of G4 TV 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.560 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.600 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.400 and I love all things tech and it is in 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.880 late August twenty about a year ago, I recorded an 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.840 episode about well, a couple of episodes about tech TV 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.560 and G four TV, a pair of cable television channels 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.159 that merged in the United States, uh and then suffered 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.720 a rather sad fate. And I did a full episode 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.880 on each to kind of explain what happened with both 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.760 of them, and I wanted to go back and revisit 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.360 the G four TV episode. Now. The reason for this 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:55.000 is because recent developments have changed things. There's been indication 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:02.360 of life after cable death. But I'll explain that when 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.000 we finished listening to this episode from last year, so 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.840 that we understand where I'm coming from when I talk 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:15.360 about the potential reboot of G four TV. First, let's 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:20.600 listen to this classic episode. This is the second episode 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.680 I'm devoting to a pair of tech related television channels 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.440 that made an attempt to court a tech savvy, largely 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:33.039 male audience on cable television Our last episode was about 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.280 tech TV, which I talked about up to when that 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.640 channel merged with another one. Today, I'm going to focus 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.800 on that other channel that would end up getting merged 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.240 with tech TV before spoiler alert, both would be ultimately 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.639 shut down entirely. That tech channel was called G four TV, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.800 which was a television channel marketed towards gamers. For a 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.600 bit longer than a decade, video game enthusiasts had their 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:05.240 very own cable channel, well sort of, because the channel 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:09.120 would change dramatically and would no longer really cater to 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:14.800 video game people, and also G four's reach was hardly universal, 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.840 but we'll get to all that. The story of G 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:22.040 four really starts with its founder, Charles Hershorn, who already 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.639 had a long career in media before he decided to 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.160 create a channel specifically for gamers. Hershorn had attended Harvard 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.560 and graduated in nineteen seventy nine. He probably would have 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:34.880 graduated in nineteen seventy eight, but he took a year 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.480 off after his sophomore year to cook in professional kitchens 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.320 before deciding that was not quite the life he wanted 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.360 for himself. He studied filmmaking at Harvard and was able 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.000 to take advantage of some of the school's departments to 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.040 get connections with various film studios and in show business. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.040 Who you know can be more important than what you know. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.840 He worked for a short while in Boston before relocating 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.880 to California. He enrolled in film school at the University 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.239 of Southern California, but was only there for a few 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.560 months before he dropped out. See one of those connections 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.400 he had made back at Harvard paid off big time. 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.000 The connection was promoted to the position of president of 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:19.520 production for Universal Pictures, and then this connection reached out 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.840 to hire her Shorn as a junior executive. Now I'm 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.880 going to spend a couple of seconds just here in 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.840 the studio being green with envy as I think about 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:34.120 a guy who went from recent college graduate to junior 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.520 executive in a movie studio in no time flat. Feel 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.120 free to join me in this moment of vulgar envy. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.560 Mm hmm, Okay, now I can move on, And I 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.320 should add that I don't mean to comment on her 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.680 Shorn's skill or knowledge. I cannot honestly say that he 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.440 didn't deserve that position. He may very well have. I'm 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.760 just being petty now. According to IMDb, which I should 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.760 add as not the most reliable of sources. Her Shorn 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.840 served as a production assistant on the John Hughes film 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.640 Sixteen Candles in four and then as an associate producer 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:16.200 for Bull Durham and an executive producer for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.400 I really enjoy that last film quite a bit. And 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.159 her Shorn would stay with Movies for a while before 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.640 moving over to the Fox Network. As in the television network, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.840 he came on board before the network had actually launched, 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.520 and originally his role was to develop movie programming for 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.560 the new television station. However, as the network got closer 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:42.159 to launch, executive decide against having movie programming on the 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.479 channel at all, and her Shorn would transition into a 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.760 television executive role, something that was entirely new to him. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.599 Her Shorn would recruit Keenan Ivory Waynes, who successfully pitched 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.839 a sketch comedy show called In Living Color, which in 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.240 turn would launch the careers of folks like Jim Carey, 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:02.000 Jamie Fox, and Jennifer Lopez as among others. Her Shorn 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.640 stayed with Fox for just three years, from nineteen eighty 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.760 six to nineteen eighty nine, Bull Durham and Dirty Rotten 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.440 Scoundrels would both come out in Night, but his involvement 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.160 in those had been in the early stages of the films, 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.720 and he still did some independent production work. He then 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.080 moved over to the Mouse House. He joined the Walt 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.440 Disney Company as the senior vice president of production for 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.400 a brand new movie studio under Disney called Hollywood Pictures, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.760 which would make films like The Santa Claus, among others. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.640 In nineteen six, Disney named her Shorn the president of 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.080 Walt Disney TV, while he would also serve as executive 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.640 vice president of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. He stayed 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:46.000 on until nineteen when he either left or was you know, 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.960 told to leave. While Disney TV and ABC began to 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.279 streamline operations and get rid of redundancies, it was in 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.600 two thousand, two years after tech TV then called z 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.920 d TV had launched, that her Shorn began to put 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.200 together his first ideas for what would become G four. 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.040 He attended the trade show E three for the first time. 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.440 That's the Big North American Video Games trade show, and 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.200 according to later interviews, her Shorn originally thought about how 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.720 video games have a lot of animation in them, and 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.640 he had just spent a few years as president of 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.159 Walt Disney Television, which produced several animated series, so maybe 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.960 he thought you could do something with the animation and 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:33.000 video games and turn it into a linear form of storytelling. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.960 His concept evolved into a channel that would be similar 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.680 to something like MTV was back in the early nineteen eighties, 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.000 only instead of focusing on music and the rock and 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:48.400 roll lifestyle cue the song by Cake here, it would 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.599 use video games as the central focus for the channel. So, 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.320 in other words, he wanted to engineer a channel geared 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.960 toward a younger audience, with a bit of a rebellious edge, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.320 you know, and a very corporate calculated way. Now, to 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.360 be clear, there was a little bit of video game 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.720 programming on television, but it was usually restricted to a 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.320 segment on a longer show that was dedicated to technology 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.840 in general. And there was an online audio and video 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:21.840 network called Pseudo Entertainment that covered, among other things, video 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.440 games and included video but this was in the early 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.760 two thousand's and most people lacked a good enough Internet 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:33.680 connection to view streaming video in anything approaching decent resolution quality. 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.320 More often than not, you had a thumbnail sized video 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.680 running in a corner somewhere, and that's as good as 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.480 you could watch. And if you try to expand it 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.440 beyond that, your connection would just chug along and you'd 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.440 be buffering the entire time. Pseudo would go out of 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.160 business not long after the dot com bubble began to 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.560 collapse in two thousand. Also, the story behind Pseudo is 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.720 like super bonkers, so I have to do an episode 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.280 about that at some point. Oh and one other interesting connection. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.560 David Boorman, a TV producer, stepped in to run Pseudo 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.200 towards the end. He would also go on to produce 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.640 the Tech Live block of programming I talked about for 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.680 tech TV, and some of the folks from Pseudo would 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.160 actually end up being part of G four. Anyway, there 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.040 appeared to be at least some demand for more video 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.360 game related content, and no one was meeting it just yet. 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.320 So her short goes on and he founds a production 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:34.360 company under Comcast, the cable provider. So this production company 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.840 belonged to Comcast. It was called G four Media. He 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.120 hired on a consultant named Scott Rubin to help develop 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.040 the concept of a video Game Channel. Reuben would go 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.679 on to become the vice president of Internet I T 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.400 and program editorial, and would also serve as a host 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.080 on several shows. The G four name was supposedly a 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.200 reference to the four types of games that would be 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.280 the focal point for the channel, video game, computer games, 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.880 online games, and wireless games. And that seems a little 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.800 bit confusing to me, since in two thousand two most 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:13.480 games were pretty firmly either computer games or console games. 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.920 Nearly all online games were a subset of computer games. 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.520 There were very few console games that were online, and 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.800 I'm guessing by wireless they really meant like handheld systems 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.240 like game Boy and game Boy Advance, because cell phone 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.320 games were almost not a thing. I mean, there was Snake, 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.319 but there wasn't much else in two thousand two, But hey, 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.200 who am I to criticize this logic. Also, much later, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.959 her Shorn would reveal in an interview with Kevin Pereira 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.360 that he had asked his wife to secure a U 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.679 r L for the new company before they had even 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.280 figured out what the name was going to be, and 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.000 he wanted video game to be in the name for 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.160 the U r L, but his wife wasn't able to 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.760 find an available U r L with video games in it, 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.280 so he said, just grabbed something with the initial V 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.160 or G or something, and she went down the list 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.800 and said, G once taken G two's tip and G three, 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:04.880 G four is available, and he said, just take that. 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.400 So it's possible that G four got its name because 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.960 literally that was the available U r L. In case 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.320 you are curious, this was during what is generally called 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.240 the sixth generation of video game systems, also known as 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.840 the one eight bit era, this being you know, at 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.720 the time when G four would launch. That is, Consoles 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:31.320 belonging to this generation included the original Xbox, the PlayStation two, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.640 the Nintendo GameCube, and the Sega Dreamcast, though the Dreamcast 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.360 was already starting to fade away by two thousand two, 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.480 and that was the last year anyone made games for 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.840 the Dreamcast outside of Japan. Uh Japan Dreamcast games would 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.480 keep on going till about two thousand and seven. The 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.439 executive crew for this company would include a lot of 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.320 folks from the production side of entertainment, so her Shorn 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.120 would serve as president and CEO. The Chief Operating Officer 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.480 or c o O was Deborah Green, who had previously 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.280 been a senior vice president over at E Networks in 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.920 the nineteen nineties. The head of affiliate and advertising sales, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.160 guy called Dale Hopkins, had also worked for E Networks. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.160 The head of programming was Vince Longobardo, who had been 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.760 with MTV for nearly twenty years before joining G four. 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.280 The company also recognized that might be a good idea 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.959 to bring in some people who have insight into video 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.280 games and video game culture, and so another founding leader 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.200 of G four Media was Tom Russo, who had previously 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.400 been the editor of a gaming magazine called Next Generation, 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.200 and of course Scott Rubin was acting as a consultant 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.080 as well. Comcast funded the development and the launch of 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.120 this channel. They gave the company essentially a hundred fifty 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.600 million dollars and the plan was to give G four 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.960 three to five years in order to make enough money 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.960 to pay off that initial investment. According to analysts, that 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.160 would mean the channel would need to reach a down 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.800 thirty to forty million households total, and the prime demographic, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.120 as I mentioned earlier, was eighteen to thirty four year 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.520 old men. Now keep in mind this was back in 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.080 the early two thousand's when video games were still considered 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.800 a sort of niche hobby for nerds. There were a 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.240 lot of negative stereotypes about gamers, mostly that they were 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.439 a bunch of socially awkward losers. And I used this 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.079 as the stereotype. I don't think people who are socially 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.160 awkward are losers at all, but this is the kind 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.839 of thought process people were in back then, that video 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.680 game players were socially awkward losers who, according to most insults, 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.440 lived in their parents basements and played video games, never 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.000 stepped outside ever, didn't know how to talk to anybody else. 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.920 That kind of thing. That was very much a predominant 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.880 stereotypical view of people who liked video games back in 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.760 the early two thousand's, And it's quite possible that some 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.480 of the folks at G four Media, you know, some 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.520 of the people in charge, shared some of those perceptions 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.120 about deo game fans. There was next to no acknowledgement 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.480 that women can also play and enjoy video games too. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.640 They were just not really considered part of the equation, 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.360 or that there are video game fans out there who 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.400 are also active, productive and successful members of society. And 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.760 I think a lot of the guiding decisions for designing 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.680 programming would be rooted in the same sort of toxic 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.120 mindset that much of gamer Gate was based in. And also, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.320 while I don't want to suggest that gamer Gate was 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.840 in any way a legitimate movement, I do think that 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.320 G four's revenue practices would raise some eyebrows when it 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.880 comes to journalistic integrity and unbiased reviews. I'll explain more 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.080 about that in just a moment. Skeptics worried that the 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.880 channel would be unable to muster a following. I mean, 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.160 who the heck wants to watch someone else play video games? Now? 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:52.880 I imagine if you were to take any of those 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.040 skeptics from two thousand to PLoP them into present day 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.480 and turn on twitch TV or YouTube, their brains would 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.360 melt right out of their ears. Now we have an 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.360 entire industry complete with superstars who go by handles like 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.600 Ninja or Shroud, who have built brands on top of 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.320 the concept of people watching them play video games. As 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.959 for me, heck, I remember being a kid and watching 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.280 really good players play arcade games. I didn't have any 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.200 desire to jump in or challenge them. I just liked 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.360 watching people who are really good at games kick some 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.120 digital butt, so I'd like to think at least I 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.680 would have felt that there was a market for this 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.840 sort of thing if it were handled properly. The Los 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.880 Angeles Times reported in January two thowo that Comcast was 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.240 going to launch a video game centric channel later that year. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.520 As far as I could tell, this was the earliest 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.760 public acknowledgement of G four. Comcast said it would launch 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.200 the channel to seven million subscribers of the company's basic 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:56.040 cable package. That wouldn't quite be the case at launch. 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.520 The hope was that comcasts support would give a fledgling 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.000 channel enough of a head start to land some good 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.960 advertising deals for its programming. An article in sf Gate 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.120 that published one month after the channel actually went live, 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.440 which was in April two two, had a slightly different 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.480 set of figures. According to the article, G four was 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.040 initially available in about three million households, with the goal 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.080 of reaching five million by the end of two thousand 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.200 two oh and like tech TV, it wasn't initially available 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.480 in San Francisco, which, at least in the minds of 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.120 the tech industry, is the center of the known universe. 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.520 When the channel went live, it broadcasts something pretty unusual 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.240 for its first week, a Pong marathon yep, the classic 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.800 video game Pong. It was the thirtieth anniversary for Pong, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.960 and sometimes the footage included two players going head to 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.640 head against each other. Sometimes it was a player versus 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:57.080 a computer opponent, but it was just Pong. After the 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.160 first week, we'd get a better idea of what G 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.800 four was going to be all about, at least at first. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.160 I'll explain more in a second, but first let's take 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:16.200 a quick break. After the Pong marathon stunt, there were 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.280 about a dozen programs that ran in heavy rotation. By that, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.600 I mean reruns or replays of a show. Some of 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.120 the shows were done live, but then would be shown 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.880 again and again throughout the twenty four period. A lot 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.560 of these were half hour shows, so they didn't fill 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.440 up a full day's worth of programming. So shows included 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.560 stuff like Cheat, a show that revealed cheat codes and 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.920 strategies for games. There was a show called Blister, which 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.560 was a series that focused on action and adventure games. 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.480 That show, by the way, was the first G four 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.080 program to air after the week long Pong marathon concluded. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.200 There was Sweat. It was similar to Blister, except it 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.200 was a show that really focused on sports video games, 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.280 of course. There was a video game review show called 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.760 Judgment Day that had originally started out as a segment 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.240 on a show called The Electric Playground that had previously 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.480 found airtime in Canada. Pulse was a news show about 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.520 video games. There were shows that would do profiles on 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.960 celebrities who liked to play video games. That one was 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.960 called Players. There was another show that looked at people 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.440 in the industry, people who were game designers or artists 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.280 or musicians that worked on games. That one was called 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.720 game Makers. I actually really liked that show. There was 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.680 an interactive talk show called g four tv dot com. 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.679 That one was my favorite show. It was hosted by 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:41.400 Laura Foy, Tina Wood, and Scott Rubin as the original group, 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.359 and they would look at news and rumors in the 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.000 video game world. They would answer questions. People would write 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.920 in and ask questions about video games that they would 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.560 try to answer and it was legit a great show 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.600 that I remember watching it all the time Back in 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.600 those days. Cinema Tech was a bit of an odd 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.200 program m. It was a thirty minute block of programming 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.000 that was really just video game play footage and video 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.959 game cut scenes with no hosts or really really any commentary. 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.919 Then they had a couple of game show like shows. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.680 There was one called Game On where they would grab 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.600 people to compete against each other in arcade games and 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.120 stuff like that, and then there was a team based 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:25.240 show called Arena and Arena would originally feature actor Will 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.720 Wheaton as one of the two hosts for the show, 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.240 the other being Travis Oates. Wheaton was the only host 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.840 in the G four lineup that the mainstream media really 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.040 recognized as being something of a celebrity. Everyone else who 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.720 was attached to G four, at least as far as 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.639 the mainstream coverage was concerned, was an unknown, though several 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.960 had been working in video games and video game journalism 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.199 for years, and many of them would go on to 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:57.480 have notable careers in production, the video game industry, in entertainment, 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:02.160 and more. For example, Judgment, the video game review show 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.520 would occasionally review gaming hardware. When they do that, they 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.560 had a young woman who would showcase the hardware. She 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:11.880 was sort of a show model showing off the stuff. 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.840 That young woman happened to be Evangeline Lily, who would 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.440 go on to be a big star in the j 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:22.160 J Abrams series lost. One thing that G four paid 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.280 a lot of attention to early on was its online presence. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.840 The channel had a dedicated website which hosted forums in 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.600 which members could post about various topics. Show hosts and 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:36.760 producers were known to pop into those forums on occasion 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.639 and contribute to the conversation, building a strong sense of community. 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.000 I was actually on those forums back in the day. 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.240 This was stuff that I didn't remember while I was 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.440 researching the show. I couldn't even remember that I used 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.800 to be on the forums all the time, But I did. 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.480 I popped on. I remember occasionally chatting with some of 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.120 the hosts, which was kind of cool. Sometimes the host 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.920 would even set up gaming sessions and which viewers could 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.720 play in online games with some their favorite on air personalities. 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.280 Some of the people in charge of monitoring the forums 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.520 had come from other online communities, such as the Pseudo 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.400 Entertainment forums. Now. According to an article in Variety, her 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.760 Shorn had said that the channel had done quote better 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.520 than expected in the quote in getting advertisement support for 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.000 the channel. And this is probably a good time to 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.359 talk about the advertising strategy in those early days because 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:28.240 some of the decisions that they made were fairly controversial 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:32.040 and again would help feed into the general complaints about 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.800 journalistic integrity and video game coverage. Further down the line, 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:42.639 I would argue that G four's advertising strategy really sowed 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.080 the seeds for the complaints that were at the heart 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.080 of gamer Gate. Keeping in mind the rest of gamer 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:54.800 Gate quickly blossomed well outside of video game journalism ethics, 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.479 so firstly, the better than expected comment might have been 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.560 a bit us ingenuous. Early on, the channel found it 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.359 difficult to fill up all the ad slots with you know, 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.200 actual ads. To flesh it all out, the channel would 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.440 include bumpers, station identification messages, often with celebrities who had 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.120 no idea what they were identifying, and video game footage 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:19.840 of players going for world records. That kind of thing. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.439 Her Schorn's innovative solution was to offer the opportunity to 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.760 video game developers and publishers to purchase air time dedicated 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.960 to their video game titles. Essentially, the deal was to 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.800 run and add as if it were actual content within 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.480 a show, so there'd be a section of a show 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:43.960 dedicated to really focusing on a specific title and to 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:45.760 a viewer of the show, it would seem like this 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.720 was part of the show's programming as opposed to a 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.600 paid for advertisement. The video game would get a couple 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.760 of minutes of dedicated coverage. Shows like Pulse, which was 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.120 the news show, and G four TV dot com would 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.639 end up being the hosting mechanisms for these segments. It 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:05.920 wasn't always clear to the viewer that the stuff they 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.560 were seeing was paid for content. Now, as a content 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.920 creator myself, I've always felt that transparency is incredibly important, 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.520 as it shows you understand your audience and you aren't 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:18.959 going to insult their intelligence because most of us are 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.800 smart enough to recognize when someone is selling stuff to us. Now, 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.000 to be fair to her Shorn and the G for 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.240 channel in general, landing deals with advertisers in two thousand 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.920 two was super hard for many reasons, some of which 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.400 I touched on in the tech TV episode that came 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.639 out before this one. One of those reasons was that 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:42.000 the economic impact of both the dot com bubble bursting 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:44.720 and then the terrorist attack in the United States on 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.480 September eleven, two thousand one, meant that a lot of 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.080 companies were cutting way back on advertising and marketing budgets. 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.240 So there just wasn't much money to go around. Complicating 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.880 matters is that there were a ton of cable channels 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.920 out there. Some of them, like G four, we're pretty 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:04.560 niche in their focus, a very narrow focus on a 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:08.080 on a demographic. Others were a little bit more broad, 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:11.840 and everyone was after that ad revenue because that was 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.479 the main source of money for most of these cable channels, 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:16.439 at least the ones that were not based on a 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:20.480 subscription model. So let's say you are running an ad 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.640