With October 2009 now in the books, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you for helping G4 to have a fantastic month of growth.
This past month, G4 recorded the strongest October in network history. G4’s total viewership rose 35% over the numbers from October 2008.
To get more specific, the network also posted record October ratings for both total homes, which were up 38%, and for males 18-34 which rose 43% versus October 2008.
The best part is that the content driving all of this growth was spread across the network through both TV and our web/on-demand platforms, which is really great to see.
To help us continue to grow, we have two big programming initiatives coming in November:
- Human Wrecking Balls Season 2 – Premieres Wednesday, November 11 @ 8 PM
Once again Craig and Paul Pumphrey use their super human strength and knowledge of science to tear down everything in their path—from a gas station and military chopper to a carnival and a tour bus. - X-Play Holiday Buyers Guide (1 hour) – Premieres Tuesday, November 24 @ 6 PM (special time)
In this special episode, X-Play dedicates an entire hour to the most coveted items this holiday season including the top 5 games for your PS3, Wii and Xbox 360. Then, Chris Hardwick brings you a special Gadget Pron: Gamer’s Guide. Plus, special segments like Sessler’s Videogame Selects, Morgan’s Saves and much more!
Again, thanks to all of you for watching G4 and we hope we can count on you to help us continue this wonderful success through the end of the year.
Now, on to this month’s questions:
We are not currently offering our programming on Netflix, but we’ll let you know if we are able to in the future. Regarding some of our library titles: there is often program material within these shows that are outside of their rights windows. However, we do create ‘weekly best-of’ versions of our topical series AOTS and X-Play. These versions are available for purchase on the Xbox 360, PS3 and the Fancast Store. Since the information is timely, we create a new episode each week, and rotate out the older versions -- keeping the four most current episodes on the service.
As mentioned in past Open Source posts, G4 U.S. does not own any portion of G4 Canada. We simply have a licensing arrangement with them. In the same way, G4 Canada has licensing arrangements with program suppliers here in the U.S. Those licensing agreements give them access to content such as The Office and the various Adult Swim shows you mentioned. To answer your first question, since I’m not aware of their strategy from a business perspective, I can’t really speak to why they’ve been able to acquire the programming they have, but it seems like they are making a concerted effort to broaden their appeal to a wider audience than the viewers videogame programs provide.
Glad to count you as a fan! We offer our HD signal to all our distribution partners including DirecTV. The decision to take the feed is entirely up to each TV provider. My recommendation is to contact DirecTV directly to request that they carry G4 in HD.
We have no plans to reduce the number of shows each week for AOTS.
We will be airing another Women of the Web special in late December. If we continue to get positive ratings, we’d like to consider a more frequent production schedule.
Glad you’re a fan. We try to license as many different episodes as we can. Currently, we have access to 190 half hours of different COPS episodes. So from your question, I’d surmise that you are watching G4 a lot, for which I thank you.
Considering that you've launched a load of original content since, which seems to be performing, and XPlay is also performing better than it used to, is this re-expansion likely to happen in the near future, in whole or in part?”user: MJK
Thanks for keeping me honest. Yes, that was the plan initially. Unfortunately, we simply couldn’t make the permanent move to 60 minutes affordable and found that our current schedule of 3 new half hour shows a week was optimal for G4 to achieve its overall goals in the near term.
Colleges typically negotiate different packages with TV providers than those that are available to the general public. What your college has is likely a volume deal since colleges essentially order subscriptions in “bulk” for their many students. Additionally, since many colleges build the cost of this service into the dorm fee, it’s in the college’s interest to keep costs for TV to a minimum. My recommendation would be to try to get some “like-minded” G4 fans together to appeal to the school to include G4 in your package. If this works, let us know and we’ll do a “shout out” to you all on Attack of the Show welcoming your school to our viewing audience.
If so how??”user: bcguy26
At this time, we do not open up the show tapings to the public. This isn’t for lack of a desire to let fans in, though. Rather, we don’t really have the space in the studio to accommodate an audience. Really, it has more to do with “codes” and insurance issues, blah, blah, blah. The people you hear clapping and laughing are typically the production team that works hard each day to pull the show together; however, we’d love to try limited “live” AOTS performances in select cities and are currently trying to figure this out. Los Angeles will likely be the first choice, simply due to proximity. Stay tuned.
Best advice I can offer is to practice covering the industry for your own reel. Do it as if you are actually covering it for real online or on air. Once you have samples and demos you’re proud of, send them around—not just to us—but to all the outlets you frequent for gaming news and info. Keep at it. Passion is a very desirable quality for any prospective employee to have.
I still love COD4 (excited for MW2) and BioShock. However, I will say that it was Gears of War back in 2006 or so that opened my eyes to what this generation of consoles was going to provide.
Be sure to submit your own questions for Open Source to the right.
