WEBVTT - The Rise and Fall of G4 TV 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.120 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.480 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.400 I Heart Radio and How Stuff Works and Love of 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.120 all Things Tech. And this is the second episode I'm 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.960 devoting to a pair of tech related television channels that 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.040 made an attempt to court a tech savvy, largely male 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.840 audience on cable television. Our last episode was about tech TV, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.440 which I talked about up to when that channel merged 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.400 with another one. Today, I'm going to focus on that 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.560 other channel that would end up getting merged with tech 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:51.680 TV before spoiler alert, both would be ultimately shut down entirely. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.680 That tech channel was called G four TV, which was 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.520 a television channel marketed towards gamers. For a bit longer 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.959 than a day, cade video game enthusiasts had their very 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.680 own cable channel, well sort of, because the channel would 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:11.839 change dramatically and would no longer really cater to video 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:16.880 game people, and also G four's reach was hardly universal, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.920 But we'll get to all that. The story of G 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:24.160 four really starts with its founder, Charles Hershorn, who already 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.800 had a long career in media before he decided to 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.280 create a channel specifically for gamers. Hershorn had attended Harvard 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.640 and graduated in nineteen seventy nine. He probably would have 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.960 graduated in nineteen seventy eight, but he took a year 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.240 off after his sophomore year to cook in professional kitchens 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.479 before deciding that was not quite the life he wanted 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.480 for himself. He studied filmmaking at Harvard and was able 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.120 to take advantage of some of the school's departments to 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.200 get connections with various film studios and in show business, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.160 who you know can be more important than what you know. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.960 He worked for a short aisle in Boston before relocating 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.000 to California. He enrolled in film school at the University 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.320 of Southern California, but was only there for a few 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.680 months before he dropped out. See one of those connections 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.520 he had made back at Harvard paid off big time. 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.120 The connection was promoted to the position of president of 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.639 production for Universal Pictures, and then this connection reached out 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.960 to hire her Shorn as a junior executive. Now I'm 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:27.960 going to spend a couple of seconds just here in 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.920 the studio being green with envy as I think about 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.200 a guy who went from recent college graduate to junior 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.640 executive in a movie studio in no time flat. Feel 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:42.960 free to join me in this moment of vulgar envy. 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.680 M hmm. Okay, now I can move on, And I 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.480 should add that I don't mean to comment on her 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.800 Shorn's skill or knowledge. I cannot honestly say that he 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.560 didn't deserve that position. He may very well have. I'm 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.880 just being petty now. According to IMDb, which I should 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.880 add is not the most reliable of sources. Her Shorn 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.919 served as a production assistant on the John Hughes film 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.720 Sixteen Candles in four and then as an associate producer 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.280 for Bull Durham and an executive producer for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.480 I really enjoy that last film quite a bit. And 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.239 her Shorn would stay with movies for a while before 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.760 moving over to the Fox Network. As in the television network, 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.959 he came on board before the network had actually launched, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.600 and originally his role was to develop movie programming for 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.640 the new television station. However, as the network got closer 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.240 to launch, executive decide against having movie programming on the 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.560 channel at all, and her Shorn would transition into a 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.880 television executive role, something that was entirely new to him. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.880 Hershorn would recruit Keenan Ivory Waynes, who successfully pitched a 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.160 sketch comedy show called In Living Color, which in turn 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.200 would launch the careers of folks like Jim Kerry, Jimmie Fox, 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.920 and Jennifer Lopez, among others. Her Shorn stayed with Fox 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.520 for just three years, from nineteen eighty six to nineteen 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.720 eighty nine. Bull Durham and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels would both 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.000 come out in Night, but his involvement in those had 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.760 been in the early stages of the films, and he 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.600 still did some independent production work. He then moved over 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.000 to the mouse House. He joined the Walt Disney Company 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.120 as the senior vice president of production for a brand 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.200 new movie studio under Disney called Hollywood Pictures, which would 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.880 make films like The Santa Claus among others. In nineteen 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.920 Disney named her Shorn the president of Walt Disney TV, 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.960 while he would also serve as executive vice president of 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.599 Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. He stayed on until nineteen 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.880 when he either left or was you know, told to leave. 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.800 While Disney TV and ABC began to streamline operations and 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.880 get rid of redundancies. It was in two thousand, two 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:03.279 years after tech TV, then called z d TV, had launched, 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.279 that her Shorn began to put together his first ideas 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.120 for what would become G four. He attended the trade 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.920 show E three for the first time. That's the big 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.160 North American video games trade show, and according to later interviews, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.359 her Shorn originally thought about how video games have a 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.520 lot of animation in them, and he had just spent 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.039 a few years as president of Walt Disney Television, which 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.440 produced several animated series, So maybe he thought you could 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.520 do something with the animation and video games and turn 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:37.200 it into a linear form of storytelling. His concept evolved 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:39.800 into a channel that would be similar to something like 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.880 MTV was back in the early nineteen eighties, only instead 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.920 of focusing on music and the rock and roll lifestyle 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.279 cue the song by Cake here, it would use video 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.839 games as the central focus for the channel. So, in 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.760 other words, he wanted to engineer a channel geared toward 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.920 a younger audience with a bit of a bellious edge, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.400 you know, in a very corporate calculated way. Now, to 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.480 be clear, there was a little bit of video game 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.840 programming on television, but it was usually restricted to a 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.400 segment on a longer show that was dedicated to technology 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.960 in general. And there was an online audio and video 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.919 network called Pseudo Entertainment that covered, among other things, video 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.520 games and included video. But this was in the early 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.880 two thousand's and most people lacked a good enough Internet 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.800 connection to view streaming video in anything approaching decent resolution quality. 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.440 More often than not, you had a thumbnail sized video 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:41.760 running in a corner somewhere, and that's as good as 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:43.599 you could watch, And if you tried to expand it 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.560 beyond that, your connection would just chug along and you'd 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.560 be buffering the entire time. Pseudo would go out of 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.279 business not long after the dot com bubble began to 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.680 collapse in two thousand. Also, the story behind Pseudo is 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.760 like super bonkers, so I have to do an episode 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.400 about that at some point. Oh and one other interesting connection. 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.640 David Boorman, a TV producer, stepped in to run Pseudo 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.280 towards the end. He would also go on to produce 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.760 the Tech Live block of programming I talked about for 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.760 tech TV, and some of the folks from Pseudo would 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.240 actually end up being part of G four. Anyway, there 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.160 appeared to be at least some demand for more video 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.360 game related content, and no one was meeting it just yet. 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.400 So her short goes on and he founds a production 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.440 company under Comcast, the cable provider. So this production company 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.960 belonged to Comcast. It was called G four Media. He 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.240 hired on a consultant named Scott Rubin to help develop 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.160 the concept of a video game channel. Reuben would go 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.800 on to become the vice president of Internet I T 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.480 and program Editorial, and would also serve as a host 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.160 on several shows. The G four name was supposedly a 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.280 reference to the four types of games that would be 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.400 the focal point for the channel, video games, computer games, 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.960 online games, and wireless games. And that seems a little 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.880 bit confusing to me, since in two thousand two most 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.560 games were pretty firmly either computer games or console games. 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.040 Nearly all online games were a subset of computer games. 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.600 There were very few console games that were online, and 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.920 I'm guessing by wireless they really meant like handheld systems 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.320 like game Boy and game Boy Advanced, because cell phone 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.920 games were almost not a thing. I mean, there was 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.839 snake but there wasn't much else in two thousand two, 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.480 but hey, who am I to criticize this logic. Also 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.280 much later, her Shorn would reveal in an interview with 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.160 Kevin Pereira that he had asked his wife to secure 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.480 a U r L for the new company before they 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.080 had even figured out what the name was going to be, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.960 and he wanted video game to be in the name 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.160 for the U r L, but his wife wasn't able 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.600 to find an available U r L with video games 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.760 in it, so he said, just grab something with the 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.839 initial V or G or something, and she went down 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.080 the list and said, G once taken G two's tip, 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.400 and G three, G four is available, and he said, 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.760 just take that. So it's possible that G four got 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.920 its name because literally that was the available U r L. 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.560 In case you are curious, this was during what is 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.880 generally called the sixth generation of video game systems, also 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.800 known as the eight bit era, this being, you know, 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:27.800 at the time when G four would launch. That is, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.400 Consoles belonging to this generation included the original Xbox, the 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:37.080 PlayStation two, the Nintendo GameCube, and the Sega Dreamcast, though 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.760 the Dreamcast was already starting to fade away by two 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.920 thousand two, and that was the last year anyone made 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.480 games for the Dreamcast outside of Japan. Uh Japan Dreamcast 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.840 games would keep on going till about two thousand seven. 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.520 The executive crew for this company would include a lot 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:57.080 of folks from the production side of entertainment, so her 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.800 Shorn would serve as president and CEO. That chief operating 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:05.600 Officer or c OO was Deborah Green, who had previously 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.400 been a senior vice president over at E Networks in 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.040 the nineteen nineties. The head of affiliate and advertising sales, 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.240 guy called Dale Hopkins, had also worked for E Networks. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.240 The head of programming was Vince Longobardo, who had been 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.840 with MTV for nearly twenty years before joining G four. 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.400 The company also recognized there might be a good idea 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.040 to bring in some people who have insight into video 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.360 games and video game culture, and so another founding leader 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.280 of G four Media was Tom Russo, who had previously 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.520 been the editor of a gaming magazine called Next Generation, 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.320 and of course Scott Rubin was acting as a consultant 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.199 as well. Comcast funded the development and the launch of 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.240 this channel. They gave the company essentially a hundred fifty 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.720 million dollars, and the plan was to give G four 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.080 three to five years in order to make enough money 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.079 to pay off that initial investment. According to analysts, that 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.680 would mean the channel would need to reach around thirty 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:07.040 to forty million households total, and the prime demographic, as 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.040 I mentioned earlier, was eighteen to thirty four year old men. 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.200 Now keep in mind, this was back in the early 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.560 two thousand's, when video games were still considered a sort 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.240 of niche hobby for nerds. There were a lot of 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.720 negative stereotypes about gamers, mostly that they were a bunch 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.839 of socially awkward losers. And I used this as the stereotype. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.080 I don't think people who are socially awkward are losers 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.840 at all, but this is the kind of thought process 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.600 people were in back then, that video game players were 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.079 socially awkward losers who, according to most insults, lived in 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.400 their parents basements and played video games, never stepped outside ever, 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.960 didn't know how to talk to anybody else. That kind 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:51.160 of thing. That was very much a predominant stereotypical view 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.400 of people who liked video games back in the early 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.040 two thousand's, And it's quite possible that some of the 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.760 folks at G four Media, you know, some of the 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.319 people in charge shared some of those perceptions about video 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.000 game fans. There was next to no acknowledgement that women 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.640 can also play and enjoy video games too. They were 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.600 just not really considered part of the equation, or that 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.600 there are video game fans out there who are also active, 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.960 productive and successful members of society. And I think a 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.760 lot of the guiding decisions for designing programming would be 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.000 rooted in the same sort of toxic mindset that much 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.560 of gamer Gate was based in. And also, while I 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.959 don't want to suggest that gamer Gate was in any 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.640 way a legitimate movement, I do think that G four's 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.800 revenue practices would raise some eyebrows when it comes to 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.560 journalistic integrity and unbiased reviews. I'll explain more about that 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.920 in just a moment. Skeptics worried that the channel would 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.640 be unable to muster a following. I mean, who the 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.280 heck wants to watch someone else play video games? Now? 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:54.959 I imagine if you were to take any of those 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.160 skeptics from two thousand to PLoP them into present day 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.560 and turn on twitch, TV or YouTube, their brains would 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.480 melt right out of their ears. Now we have an 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.480 entire industry complete with superstars who go by handles like 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.720 Ninja or Shroud, who have built brands on top of 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.400 the concept of people watching them play video games. As 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.040 for me, heck, I remember being a kid and watching 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.360 really good players play arcade games. I didn't have any 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.280 desire to jump in or challenge them. I just liked 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.480 watching people who are really good at games kick some 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.200 digital butt. So I'd like to think at least I 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.800 would have felt that there was a market for this 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:36.000 sort of thing if it were handled properly. The Los 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.839 Angeles Times reported in January two thousand two that Comcast 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.960 was going to launch a video game centric channel later 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.880 that year. As far as I could tell, this was 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.280 the earliest public acknowledgement of G four. Comcast said it 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.400 would launch the channel to seven million subscribers of the 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:57.400 company's basic cable package. That wouldn't quite be the case 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:02.040 at launch. The hope was that Comcasts support would give 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.600 the fledgling channel enough of a head start to land 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.079 some good advertising deals for its programming. An article in 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.720 sf Gate that published one month after the channel actually 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.680 went live, which was in April two thou too, had 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.040 a slightly different set of figures. According to the article, 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.680 G four was initially available in about three million households, 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.560 with the goal of reaching five million by the end 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.800 of two thousand two oh and like tech TV, it 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.840 wasn't initially available in San Francisco, which, at least in 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.160 the minds of the tech industry, is the center of 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.280 the known universe. When the channel went live, it broadcasts 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:42.560 something pretty unusual for its first week, a Pong marathon yep, 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:47.000 the classic video game Pong. It was the thirtieth anniversary 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.720 for Pong, and sometimes the footage included two players going 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.120 head to head against each other. Sometimes it was a 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.680 player versus a computer opponent, but it was just Pong. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.040 After the first week, we'd get a better idea of 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.040 what G four was going to be all about, at 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.520 least at first. I'll explain more in a second, but 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:17.520 first let's take a quick break. After the Pong marathon stunt, 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.880 there were about a dozen programs that ran in heavy rotation. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.320 By that, I mean reruns or replays of a show. 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.760 Some of the shows were done live, but then would 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.240 be shown again and again throughout the twenty four period. 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.040 A lot of these were half hour shows, so they 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.600 didn't fill up a full day's worth of programming. So 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.040 shows included stuff like Cheat, a show that revealed cheat 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.560 codes and strategies for games. There was a show called Blister, 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.640 which was a series that focused on action and adventure games. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.560 That show, by the way, was the first G four 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:54.200 program to air after the week long Pong marathon concluded. 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.280 There was Sweat. It was similar to Blister, except it 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.280 was a show that really focused on sports video games. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.360 Of course. There was a video game review show called 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.840 Judgment Day that had originally started out as a segment 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.320 on a show called The Electric Playground that had previously 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.560 found airtime in Canada. Pulse was a news show about 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.600 video games. There were shows that would do profiles on 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.040 celebrities who liked to play video games. That one was 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.040 called Players. There was another show that looked at people 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.480 in the industry, people who were game designers or artists 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.360 or musicians that worked on games. That one was called 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.800 game Makers. I actually really liked that show. There was 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.840 an interactive talk show called G four tv dot Com. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.760 That one was my favorite show. It was hosted by 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.480 Laura Foy, Tina Wood, and Scott Rubin as the original group, 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.400 and they would look at news and rumors in the 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.080 video game world. They would answer questions. People would write 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.000 in and ask questions about video games that they would 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.640 try to answer, and it was legit a great show 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.680 that I remember watching it all the time back in 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.400 those days. Send the Tech was a bit of an 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.280 odd program. It was a thirty minute block of programming 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.080 that was really just video game play footage and video 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:11.040 game cut scenes with no hosts or really really any commentary. 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.000 Then they had a couple of game show like shows. 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.760 There was one called Game On where they would grab 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.639 people to compete against each other in arcade games and 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.200 stuff like that, and then there was a team based 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:27.320 show called Arena, and Arena would originally feature actor Will 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.800 Wheaton as one of the two hosts for the show, 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.280 the other being Travis Oates. Wheaton was the only host 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.880 in the G four lineup that the mainstream media really 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.120 recognized as being something of a celebrity. Everyone else who 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.800 was attached to G four, at least as far as 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.720 the mainstream coverage was concerned, was an unknown, though several 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.040 had been working in video games and video game journalism 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:54.280 for years, and many of them would go on to 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:59.560 have notable careers in production, the video game industry, in entertainment, 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:04.240 and more. For example, Judgment Day, the video game review show, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.600 would occasionally review gaming hardware. When they do that, they 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.639 had a young woman who would showcase the hardware. She 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:13.919 was sort of a show model showing off the stuff. 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.920 That young woman happened to be Evangeline Lily, who would 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:19.480 go on to be a big star in the j 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.240 J Abrams series Lost. One thing that G four paid 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.359 a lot of attention to early on was its online presence. 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.919 The channel had a dedicated website which hosted forums in 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.679 which members could post about various topics. Show hosts and 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.800 producers were known to pop into those forums on occasion 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.680 and contribute to the conversation, building a strong sense of community. 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.040 I was actually on those forums back in the day. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.320 This was stuff that I didn't remember while I was 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.560 researching the show. I couldn't even remember that I used 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.880 to be on the forums all the time, But I did. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.560 I popped on. I remember occasionally chatting with some of 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.160 the hosts, which was kind of cool. Sometimes the host 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.000 would even set up gaming sessions and which viewers could 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.720 play in online games. With some of their favorite on 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.760 air personalities. Some of the people in charge of monitoring 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.040 the forums had come from other online communities, such as 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:13.040 the pseudo Entertainment forums. Now. According to an article in Variety, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.119 her Shorn had said that the channel had done quote 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.600 better than expected end quote in getting advertisement support for 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.080 the channel. And this is probably a good time to 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.439 talk about the advertising strategy in those early days, because 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.320 some of the decisions that they made were fairly controversial 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.120 and again would help feed into the general complaints about 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.879 journalistic integrity and video game coverage. Further down the line, 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:44.719 I would argue that G four's advertising strategy really sowed 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.160 the seeds for the complaints that were at the heart 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.159 of gamer Gate. Keeping in mind the rest of gamer 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:56.880 Gate quickly blossomed well outside of video game journalism ethics, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.399 so firstly, the better than expect did comment might have 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.639 been a bit disingenuous. Early on, the channel found it 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.439 difficult to fill up all the ad slots with you know, 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.280 actual ads. To flesh it all out, the channel would 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.440 include bumpers, station identification messages, often with celebrities who had 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.200 no idea what they were identifying, and video game footage 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.920 of players going for world records that kind of thing. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.520 Her Schorn's innovative solution was to offer the opportunity to 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.840 video game developers and publishers to purchase air time dedicated 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.040 to their video game titles. Essentially, the deal was to 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.879 run and add as if it were actual content within 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.560 a show, So there'd be a section of a show 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:46.040 dedicated to really focusing on a specific title, and to 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:47.840 a viewer of the show, it would seem like this 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.800 was part of the show's programming as opposed to a 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.680 paid for advertisement. The video game would get a couple 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.840 of minutes of dedicated coverage. Shows like Pulse, which was 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.200 the news show, and G four TV dot com would 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.719 end up being the hosting mechanisms for these segments. It 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.959 wasn't always clear to the viewer that the stuff they 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.640 were seeing was paid for content. Now, as a content 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.040 creator myself, I've always felt that transparency is incredibly important, 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.560 as it shows you understand your audience and you aren't 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.040 going to insult their intelligence because most of us are 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.840 smart enough to recognize when someone is selling stuff to us. Now, 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.080 to be fair to her Shorn and the G for 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:31.240 channel in general, Landing deals with advertisers in two thousand 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.000 two was super hard for many reasons, some of which 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.640 I touched on in Detech TV episode that came out 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.879 before this one. One of those reasons was that the 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.439 economic impact of both the dot com bubble bursting and 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.720 then the terrorist attack in the United States on September eleven, 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:50.120 two tho one, meant that a lot of companies were 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.720 cutting way back on advertising and marketing budgets, so there 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:58.119 just wasn't much money to go around. Complicating matters is 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.600 that there were a ton of cable channels out there. 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.560 Some of them, like G four, were pretty niche in 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.840 their focus, a very narrow focus on a on a demographic. 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.879 Others were a little bit more broad, and everyone was 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:14.600 after that ad revenue because that was the main source 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.960 of money for most of these cable channels, at least 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.560 the ones that were not based on a subscription model. 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.480 So let's say you are running an ad agency and 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.320 you've got a big client that wants you to run 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.840 ads on television. So you're looking at your options, and 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.880 it's a buyer's market because there are so many channels 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.720 out there. They all have inventory, they all have these 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.520 ad slot spaces, they want to fill up, So there's 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.520 a lot of potential space out there. So do you 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.680 go with a niche channel geared towards a very specific 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:47.240 hobby and it's a channel that doesn't even reach that 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.080 many households in the grand scheme of things, or do 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:52.360 go with a channel that has a more broad appeal 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.320 and reaches more homes and it's probably for a pretty 0:22:56.320 --> 0:23:00.280 similar price, because no one can ask for very highs 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.520 on their advertising at this point. Well, it will surprise 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:07.280