G4 Lives On September 23, 2013

A few years ago I chronicled what I considered to be the Fall of G4.  In the two-part story I detailed how a once great network had slowly lost its relevance after it saw a corporate merger.  At the end of the article I gave a piece of advice to the people who currently ran G4, specifically I stated that they should bring back all of their old shows or they might as well shut down.  Well, earlier this year, it seemed like G4 was going to take my advice, but not the bit that I wanted.  G4 announced they were shutting down in January 2013.  Low ratings coupled by a lack of decent original content, as well as apathy from the gamers they had alienated from the network years prior had made the network one of the lowest rated channels by most of the major TV providers.  Instead of focusing their energy on improving the station with decent gaming relevant content, G4 announced they were going to drop their content altogether and they were going to become the Esquire Network.

This was an exceptionally odd choice as it made absolutely no sense to completely change the focus of an entire network.  Where did they think their audience was going to come from?  This was an even worse decision than what Comcast had done to it years earlier when they merged G4 with Tech TV and canceled or recast most of their shows.  The remaining two shows that were being produced by G4, Attack of the Show and X-Play, were going to be cancelled, the entire staff would be let go, and the station would be completely replaced by a slew of new shows and syndicated content.  It would have been nice for all that effort to have gone into making G4 better, but that’s a discussion for another time.  The worst part was that G4 would not continue their live coverage of the major gaming events, so there would be no G4 coverage of E3 2013, an E3 where no less than two major consoles would be previewed.  Some of the major talent including Adam Sessler and Kevin Perrera jumped ship early, but others including Morgan Webb, Kristen Adams, and Candace Bailey stuck around to the end.

I have to admit, even as a person who has had their problems with G4 in the past, it was sad watching the station slowly wind down as the station’s shows lead up to their final episodes.  Over the past few years, G4 had produced some decent content, including their Top 100 Video Games special, they just weren’t showing it consistently on their station.  On top of that, I have to admit I loved seeing the Quantum Leap reruns every night.  G4 had been airing almost nothing but syndicated content of the last three months of their existence, including some really great final episodes of X-Play, on top of great Sci-Fi shows Heroes and Quantum Leap.  After Attack of the Show and X-Play aired their final episodes, it almost felt as if the station was caught in a perpetual loop, but it was a loop of some great content.  It felt like such a shame that the station’s best content would come out just as they were going to be ending.

However, the Esquire Network would be coming, and the station certainly wasn’t holding back on that.  The problem was that the Esquire Network sure was taking its sweet time launching.  The first bumpers I saw for the network included a launch date of April 2013, then that was pushed down to Summer 2013, until they finally they announced a solid launch date of September 23rd, 2013.   In the meantime, new content did eventually come to G4 this summer when the show American Ninja Warrior started their new season.  American Ninja Warrior looked like it was originally scheduled to air after the Esquire Network launch, as if you look closely on the backgrounds of the set you can see no mention of G4, but plenty of Esquire Network and NBC posters.  Likely the constant delays of the network’s launch prompted American Ninja Warror to air when the station was still G4 branded, however this wasn’t much of an issue since episodes from earlier seasons had aired on G4 in the past.  The upside was that the show’s most recent season was pretty good, and attracted quite a favorable response from people watching it.  Heck, I loved it.  I would watch it regularly with my girlfriend’s father, and he enjoyed it so much he wanted to compete in it for next season.

Well the Summer slowly ticked away and I knew the station would not remain for much longer.  My plan was to release the third part of my Fall of G4 series on the exact day that the station was finally shut down, closing the book on a once-great network which had been ruined by corporate muddling.  I had been preparing that final story since I heard the announcement of the Esquire transition, and it seemed like that transition was going to take place today.  However, as you can tell, that is not what happened.

There was some talk earlier in the month that the Hurst Corporation was noticing G4’s ratings this past summer as the station was airing rebroadcasts and new episodes of American Ninja Warrior, and decided that cancelling the station and changing it into something completely different was not the good idea they originally believed.  I remember reading this story after it was being scooped off the tabloids, and while I was hopeful that it was true, I was not going to believe it until I saw it for myself.  Well, I guess even I need to put my cynicism aside occasionally.

Today, if you turn on your TV and just happen to have a digital cable package, you’ll notice that G4’s station is still alive and well showing their usual syndicated content.  However, if you happen to be interested in the new shows the Esquire Network announced (and some of them did indeed look interesting), the Esquire Network did in fact launch today, just not on G4’s channel.  As originally reported in the tabloids, the Esquire Network is now on the channel previously called the Style Network.  If you ask me this is a much smarter decision as the Style Network was a completely redundant channel which only served rebroadcasts of the E! Network’s shows.

So, you’re probably asking yourself what is the point of keeping G4 alive after everything that had happened to it?  Well, I have to say that I am cautiously optimistic.  Obviously Hurst now knows the value of the G4 brand, and maybe they might know that it holds a place in the hearts of many gamers who watched their content many, many years ago, and still provided great live coverage of major gaming events.  Sure everyone is gone, but maybe this is a good chance for the network to start fresh with new people delivering new gaming related shows.  Even today, there isn’t really a network like G4.

You didn’t shut down, G4.  You made that decision and changed your mind about it.  Now I want you to take my other bit of advice and bring back your shows.  Do exactly what you did for the Esquire Network, create a whole new lineup of gaming related content.  If you need more time, show rebroadcasts of the years worth of great shows you produced.  I would love to see old episodes of Cheat!, Icons, or The Screen Savers.  Heck, you could probably reair shows like Game Makers and Portal and they would still be just as relevant as they were when they originally aired.  Heck, it would probably cost next to nothing to bring back Cinematech with new episodes.  Or if you want, do a new G4TV.com series where you broadcast discussions from knowledgeable gaming experts talking about the events of the day.

If you can bring in some great gaming shows, I can assure you when the new G4 launches, I will be there watching and I think there will be a lot of others who will as well.