Yes, Fox might have kissed and made up with Cablevision and Dish Network over the weekend, but there is still unrest in the world of carriage fees, as DirecTV has recently pulled the plug on Comcast-owned cable channel G4.
DirecTV stopped broadcasting G4, whose main thrust is the gaming industry and which has had some mainstream success with Attack of the Show (and of course, that show’s co-host Olivia Munn), on Sunday and says it has no plans on turning the switch back on.
“At this time we are no longer negotiating and we have no plans to put G4 back up,” a DirecTV rep said in an e-mail to Entertainment Weekly. “We are constantly evaluating our lineup in a new world where programming costs continue to rise at significant rates. Since G4 is among the lowest rated networks based on the latest Nielsen data, we decided that it made sense to focus on preserving programming that is more relevant to our larger customer base.”
And G4 says in its statement, “We have been trying to engage DirecTV in fair and reasonable discussions to continue to carry G4. G4 offered DirecTV the same basic deal we have had for the past three years. However they still plan to drop the network and deny G4 fans the only network that focuses on the popular gaming lifestyle.”
DirecTV drops G4 [EW.com]
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G4 still exists? Why?
Please bring back TechTV — we don’t really care about G4!
We’ve had DirecTV for two years, and I’ve never heard of G4.
All I know is: DirecTV brings me “Friday Night Lights” four months before viewers with other providers can watch it. Win.
Maybe if it was in HD I would have watched. I pretty much quit this channel when I bought an HDTV.
Also, can’t wait until Comcast owns NBC…
I fondly remember TechTV, and would love to watch another show like it. G4 did us all a disservice by killing it off, and good riddance to a channel I have not watched in years…
I’d gladly accept 33 more channels of Armenian dramas, or Korean cooking shows if they promise to not bring back G4. Hell, I’ll even take Vietnamese TV evangelists.
I liked G4, mostly because of their Japanese game shows.
But as a question to DirecTV: really? G4 brings in lower ratings than the Golf Channel, or any of the outdoor hunting themed channels you broadcast? I doubt that.
G4 we will mi….
Wait they cut off G4. About damn time! Take that for killing our beloved Tech TV you a-holes.
Yay! The end of the annoying logo every 20 seconds!
At least the Canadian G4 isn’t laden with reruns of Cops. Here it’s reruns of the Office, which isn’t too bad considering. But at least our G4 still has some more tech-centric programming (via Victor Lucas’ EP Daily and Reviews on the Run shows.) And we can still watch 2-6 year old repeats of Leo Laporte’s shows that were produced up here–for those who don’t remember, when Comcast killed TechTV in the US, it was still G4 TechTV up here until actually a few months ago. Laporte continued doing Call For Help up here until 2007, moved to Vancouver to do The Lab with Leo for about a year, then our Comcast (Rogers) put the kibash on that–though we still see the reruns informing us about this great new browser called Firefox, and the new security features in Windows XP Service Pack 2. Still, I guess that beats watching repeats of Cops.
haha yes, I remember seeing Leo on one of his Canadian shows and they were talking about some antivirus that didn’t have malware protection attached to it yet. Its kind of fun to watch these old shows and see how far we’ve come or haven’t in some cases.
The premise of a gaming “lifestyle” channel has a major flaw: It ignores the fact most gamers rarely (if ever) change the input on their TV from the game consoles to the cable or satellite box.
+1 to DirecTV
What about my 8 hours of Cops?
Good Riddance. G4 and Tech TV should never merged and kept with its core content. A Gaming lifestyle isn’t filled with Cops, Cheaters, and other shows. Same goes with technology lifestyle.
Bring back TechTV, you rotten &^$%#!!!
I hated Comcast for that. They ruined an awesome channel that actually had a topic and stuck to it.. well, aside from Adult Swim.
a la carte channels everybody – reduce cost of subscribers. I dont watch sports or care about gaming channels … why should i subsidize others who watch them.
Now where am I supposed to view Ninja Warrior?
HAHAHAHAHA!!! G4 deserves it for gutting TechTV. That was the only channel I watched in my nerdy phase in Jr High & High School until it was raped of any good content.
Does this mean I can be let out of my DirecTV contract, now that I can no longer receive the products and services I pay for?
And nothing of importance has been lost.
And nothing of importance has been lost.
My wife and I discovered G4 well after the TechTV merger, and we’ve loved watching Ninja Warrior, Attack of the Show, and X-Play together. The current G4 has done a hell of a job showing cool stuff and getting mainstream attention despite Comcast’s lack of support to give them more original (and successful) content. Maybe if the crybabies whining about TechTV actually watched Attack of the Show and noticed how much of G4′s editorial content is in line with sites like Consumerist and BoingBoing, they’d realize what a loss this is.
Who cares. I miss Tech TV with Leo, Chris, Patrick, Kate, Martin, Kevin, etc… Wish they would have started thier own network. Fav was Call for Help & The Screen Savers.
The only thing good DirecTV has done – now if they only gave me the Free HD for Life like they did everybody else they would have kept me as a customer!
Well seeing as how the gaming portion of this channel is limited to about 4-5 hours a day followed by The Office, Campus Police and other nonsense for the rest of the time, Im not surprised to see it rated low. The channel has been a waste of space especially since gamers know their best information source are internet sites strictly dedicated to gaming that will literally update within seconds of news being released.
G4 was a waste of space in my channel lineup. Glad its gone
I may switch to Direc because of this