Founded 1997 | Parent organization Comcast | |
Headquarters Los Angeles, California, United States Profiles | ||
G4 Media, LLC was the parent company of G4, a defunct 24-hour cable and satellite channel originally dedicated to video games. NBCUniversal holds a controlling interest in G4 Media, with Dish Network holding a minority interest of approximately 12% because its former parent company held a minority interest in TechTV and owned Dish Network. Prior to the Comcast NBC merger, Comcast owned the network, previously named G4 Media, Inc.
Contents
History
In early 2004, G4 Media (at the time owned entirely by Comcast) announced the purchase of a controlling interest in TechTV. On May 28, 2004, G4 and TechTV merged into a hybrid network called G4techTV. EchoStar (which held a minority interest in TechTV and owned Dish Network) retained partial ownership of the combined entity.
The new network leaned more toward the gaming programming that was featured on G4 than the technology side that was featured on TechTV, prompting petitions and complaints from disaffected TechTV fans. On February 15, 2005, TechTV was officially dropped from the network name in the United States, leaving only three TechTV shows, X-Play, Anime Unleashed (removed indefinitely as of March 2006) and The Screen Savers (later rebranded as Attack of the Show!). The channel's programming direction eventually was directed towards men with mostly acquired programs mixed with several original productions.
G4 Media used to hold a 33.3% minority interest in G4's Canadian counterpart.
On October 13, 2006, Comcast announced that it will consolidate G4, bringing it E!, and the Style Network into a new combined entity later known as the Comcast Entertainment Group. G4's executive staff moved into E!'s Los Angeles offices and layoffs occurred. E! likewise began using G4's former facility to produce their own content, including the early seasons of Chelsea Lately.
There had been reports of G4TV rebranding itself in Summer 2013 into an upscale men's channel previous to the recent programming changes. It was announced on December 7, 2012 that G4 will in fact be rebranded as the Esquire Network (previously Esquire Channel) after NBCUniversal closed a deal with Hearst Corporation (the owner of Esquire). Any and all in-house productions for the G4 network have ended as of January 23, with the exception of American Ninja Warrior in the summer of 2013 after the pushback of the Esquire Network launch to September 23, 2013. In a surprising turn of events, NBCUniversal says that the Style Network is chosen as the new candidate for the relaunch as Esquire Network. One of the factors was likely Style's distribution on DirecTV (which dropped G4 sometime in late 2010), giving Esquire more homes at launch with the Style channel slot. G4 Media, and its main network are expected to "remain as is for the foreseeable future, though it's highly unlikely the company will invest in more original programming."
Dish Network, which was a part owner of G4 Media, dropped the network from its lineup on November 1, 2013.
G4 Media becomes defunct, so does G4
After the fifth season of American Ninja Warrior was completed, control of production for the series for future seasons shifted from G4 Media to NBCUniversal Television, leaving G4 Media as a defunct production company maintaining the archives of TechTV and G4 within the Comcast organization.
According to a statement sent by NBCUniversal Cable to the remaining providers carrying the network, G4 would end all operations on November 30, 2014,. On December 31, 2014 at 11:59pm EST, G4 ceased broadcasting.