G4 TV is no more…once again.
Just one year after relaunching the video game-centric cable TV channel, G4 TV, Comcast has decided to pull the plug.
In a memo first obtained by Deadline, the CEO of Comcast’s sports and entertainment division, Spectator, Dave Scott, explained the decision to employees.
“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,” explained Scott. “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.”
It’s not too surprising to find out that the decision to shut down G4 TV has to do with low ratings. That often is the main factor in television. However, the decision was surprising to a number of G4 employees who did not see or receive the memo. Quite a few of these G4 employees shared that they found out about the G4 TV shutdown, and essentially their unemployment, via Twitter.
After the popular gaming deals Twitter account, @Wario64, shared a screenshot of the memo, a few G4 employees said they didn’t know until they saw that tweet.
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“LMAO the dude I follow to find a PS5 is how I find out I no longer have a job,” said one G4 staffer.
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According to the Washington Post, an email from G4’s head told staff that the office would be closed until Oct. 18 and that all streams were postponed. However, the email did not mention anything to employees about a shutdown or loss of their jobs. Furthermore, the crew behind the G4 show, Arena, which was created as part of a deal with WWE, walked out on the program last week.
Even the WWE superstar who hosted Arena seemed to be unaware he was out of a gig until the G4 news hit Twitter on Sunday.
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“On a flight currently. Decided to get the wifi so I could shoot a text. Out of habit opened twitter….” tweeted pro wrestler Xavier Woods, who went by the name Austin Creed on the G4 show.
As a big gamer, Woods had very publicly campaigned to get the G4 TV hosting gig when news first broke that it was returning last year.
G4 TV was relaunched in November 2021 and even brought back some of its most popular shows, like Xplay and Attack of the Show!, from its former decades-long run when it last closed down in December 2014. However, the channel really never gained even the niche popularity it had enjoyed in its original run.
Simply put, it might just be hard for a gaming-centric channel to find a place in the current market being that its potential audience is already very online and can easily seek out their favorite streamers and personalities on YouTube and Twitch at any time. Venn, an online gaming channel launched in 2020, faced a similar challenge. It eventually shut down after one year as well in August 2021.
