G4 Television has shut down as of Sunday, October 16th. The gaming and esports channel has been shut down before but was rebooted in 2020 after being off the air for seven years. Comcast Spectacor owned G4 and attempted to revive the channel in an effort to add to its array of sports and esports broadcasting. But it seems the demand for esports and gaming content on network TV has diminished significantly. The decision comes after the studio and network consistently failed to make a profit. Although G4 may have had some popularity in the early 2000s, most of its would-be viewers now look for their gaming content from elsewhere.
G4’s shutdown is another in the series of downfalls that network television is experiencing across the industry. Though it’s no secret that streaming services are steadily becoming more popular, it seems that big television companies are starting to feel the impact of this change in a big way. With NBC trimming its 10 pm primetime television block, David Nevins leaving Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery expanding HBO Max, this is just one more in a long list of events demonstrating a shift away from traditional television. G4, though it wasn’t popular, catered to a demographic that specifically gets more of its content from streaming platforms.
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G4’s (Final) Shut Down
Comcast Spectacor
G4 was first launched in 2002 by NBCUniversal. The channel ran for years with popular programs like Attack of the Show! and X-Play. It even had its own broadcast studio meant to host professional esports events. But after it waned in popularity, NBCUniversal shut down G4 in 2013. When Comcast Spectacor officially brought it back on November 16, 2021, the group revived many of the shows from its old run on television. They even hired former employees from the channel, like Brian Terwilliger and Brian Herter. But now, under a year later, G4 will be shut down once more, resulting in the layoff of 45 employees.
Comcast Spectacor tried to make G4 relevant by bringing in talent from YouTube, Twitch, and recognizable esports personalities such as Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez (The Titan Games), Ovilee May, and Froskurinn. Names from YouTube included Kassem G, Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil, and Gina Darling. And G4 even brought in Twitch streamers Fiona Nova and Will Neff, as well as some not-so-human live streamers like CodeMiko and the degenerate rat-puppet, Ratty. So the effort to bring the channel back was not effortless or ignorant of TV’s changing cultural surroundings.
Deadline obtained a company-wide memo in which Dave Scott, CEO and Chairman of Comcast Spectacor, said:
Spectacor’s efforts in programming were always focused on more traditional sports broadcasting, with the company owning the Philadelphia Flyers. G4 seemed to be more of a light foray into the esports world, which Spectacor was unable to maintain or hardly even invested in at all.
“Over the past several months, we worked hard to generate that interest in G4, but viewership is low and the network has not achieved sustainable financial results. This is certainly not what we hoped for, and, as a result, we have made the very difficult decision to discontinue G4’s operations, effective immediately. I know this is disappointing news, and I’m disappointed, too. I want to thank you and everyone on the G4 team for the hard work and commitment to the network.”
Is Traditional TV Changing?
Paramount
G4 was never a big staple of broadcast television. If anything, it was a network’s first attempt at adapting to a new form of entertainment. If anything, a much greater sign of change would come from Comedy Central losing Trevor Noah as the host of The Daily Show and wondering if late-night talk shows will continue to be relevant on streaming platforms. But G4 holds that strange place in TV where networks try to bridge the gap between regular television and events that are more often shown on the internet.
G4’s focus on esports put it in competition with big streaming websites like Twitch, which is most certainly the biggest place to go for esports events. G4 aimed to entertain a crowd of viewers that usually got their content from the internet, so their programming reflected the type of content one would typically see from YouTube sketch comedy groups and people that produced machinima.
The end of G4 was somewhat heralded by the company president, Russell Arons, leaving just two months earlier. This might give people pause who have recently seen executives from Paramount leaving the company. G4 was TV’s effort to try and stretch itself into the new era of entertainment. With more traditional TV programs losing traction, one wonders if television as we know it will even exist a decade from now. With streaming platforms poised to replace longstanding television networks, the question isn’t if broadcast television will collapse but when.
