2002–2014: Original Launch G4 was launched on April 24, 2002, under the ownership of
Comcast. The initial concept was to create a service similar to rival
TechTV but targeted at 12-to-34-year-olds, an elusive demographic. The channel was soft launched with a week-long series of
Pong matches. It was initially available to three million Comcast subscribers, and offered 13 half-hour programs. G4 was created and originally led by
Charles Hirschhorn, a former president of
Walt Disney Television and
Television Animation. He expected video game creators themselves to eventually produce programming for the channel. He envisioned that G4 could follow in the footsteps of MTV, which provided music video producers with a venue for non-traditional television programming. Hirschhorn intended G4 to become a vehicle for unconventional advertising. In 2002, G4 offered advertisers wide latitude to place their products on G4's programs, and even allowed their commercials to appear as if they were a
part of the program. G4 offered what was called a "2 minute unit", which was an advertising package played as if it were part of a G4 program that was long enough to run an entire movie trailer. G4 offered to sell the right to have a game showcased on the show
Pulse. The combined network was rebranded as
G4techTV. On February 15, 2005, less than a year after the merger, the "TechTV" brand was removed from the channel's name. A
Canadian version of TechTV, originally launched on September 7, 2001, would also be relaunched under the "G4techTV" branding and would retain the brand until 2009. In September 2005, Neal Tiles replaced Hirschhorn as the channel's president. Tiles had previously been a senior marketing executive at
DirecTV,
Fox Sports and
ESPN. He announced in May 2006 that G4 would be retooled as a male-oriented channel, stating that "guys like to play games, but not necessarily watch a bunch of shows with games on the screen". Comcast announced on October 12, 2006, that it would consolidate its west coast entertainment operations, including G4,
E! and
Style Network into a new group headed by
Ted Harbert, who had formerly run E!. It was announced that the upper management of the G4 channel would relocate to E!'s Los Angeles office. Harbert gave his opinion at the time that the focus of the channel on "gaming has been demonstrated as being too narrow." On March 4, 2007, it was announced that the G4 Studios in
Santa Monica, California, would close on April 15. Production of G4 programs was relocated to the Comcast Entertainment Group facility, which housed E! and Style Network, in the Wilshire Courtyard complex in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles (G4's original facility remains in use as an E! studio and office facility and was utilized by
Chelsea Lately and
After Lately until their October 2012 move to
Universal Studios Hollywood). As a consequence, many G4 employees involved in production were terminated. The sets of G4's original programs were also redesigned to fit within the new smaller spaces allocated to them. In April 2007, G4, in association with Earth911, launched an
electronic-waste-recycling campaign called Gcycle. On February 17, 2009, it was reported that G4 intended to cut back its original programming.
X-Play would be reduced to three nights a week while
Attack of the Show! would be cut to four nights a week. Consequently, a number of the staff and production crew involved in the shows would be laid off.
Layla Kayleigh also left G4 in April 2009 after Neal Tiles announced that her contract would not be renewed. It was announced during
Comic-Con 2010 that G4 would be the exclusive
North American broadcaster of
Marvel Anime, which made its television debut in 2011. During the week of July 26-August 1, 2010, G4 temporarily changed its logo to 4G as a promotion for
Sprint Nextel's next generation wireless internet service.
2010–2012: DirecTV carriage dispute and proposed buyouts by UFC and WWE On November 1, 2010, DirecTV announced that it had removed G4 from its channel lineup, citing low interest among their subscriber base and low Nielsen ratings as the primary reason for the satellite service removing the channel. DirecTV commented that it was "...unable to reach an agreement to continue carrying the G4 channel and it has been removed from the DirecTV channel lineup." It was reported that the
UFC and
WWE were in separate talks to buy G4 in 2011. The UFC
eventually partnered with
Fox, while WWE launched its
own network on February 24, 2014.
2012–2014: Post-NBCUniversal/Comcast merger, decline and closure On January 5, 2012, Neal Tiles resigned as CEO. He was replaced by former NBCUniversal marketing chief Adam Stotsky. Long-time employees
Adam Sessler and
Kevin Pereira both departed the network during the first half of 2012. On October 26, 2012, it was announced that
X-Play and
Attack of the Show! would be cancelled by the end of the year. This would end all of G4's studio programming, leaving it only airing acquired and syndicated programming. Reports of G4 rebranding itself in 2013 into an upscale men's channel appeared previous to the recent programming changes.
X-Play and
Attack of the Show! aired their final original episodes (taped a month earlier) on January 23, 2013. In December 2012,
NBCUniversal signed a
brand licensing deal with the
Hearst Corporation, owner of
Esquire magazine, to relaunch G4 into
Esquire Network which would air shows aimed at a
metrosexual audience about travel, cooking, fashion and non-sports related male programming, including the addition of acquired and archive NBCU content such as
Party Down,
Parks and Recreation, and week-delayed episodes of
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The rebranding was scheduled to take place on April 22, 2013, On September 9, 2013, it was announced that NBCUniversal would instead replace the Style Network with Esquire Network, leaving G4 "as is for the foreseeable future, though it's highly unlikely the company will invest in more original programming".
Verizon FiOS discontinued the channel on October 1, 2013, and
Cablevision did so on October 10, 2013, pursuant to a filing with the
Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control (that state's utility service regulator) a month prior, that NBCUniversal had plans to discontinue G4's operations as of the October 10 date, though only the discontinuation of carriage by Cablevision occurred. Late in October 2013,
Charter Communications, which was one of the charter carriers of TechTV when it was a sister of that network under the ownership of Vulcan Ventures, announced its intention to remove G4 on December 17; sister network
Cloo replaced G4 on its systems. On November 1, 2013, Dish Network removed it from the lineup with Esquire Network replacing G4, ending all carriage of the network from
direct broadcast satellite services.
Cox discontinued carriage of G4 in all markets on December 31, 2013. NBCUniversal's parent company, Comcast, removed G4 from its Xfinity systems nationwide on January 6, 2014. Comcast did not state outright that the network would shut down on that date. G4 continued to be carried on other cable systems nationwide despite being largely absent from the top 10 media markets (Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, or Comcast, or some combination thereof, is the dominant cable operator in all of the top 10 Nielsen DMAs). G4 still appeared on NBCU's corporate website, but it was no longer present on NBCU's "Media Village" press site. With G4 slowly decaying, syndication rights to
Heroes and
Lost expired at the end of August 2014, along with the rights to
Cops, which went to Cloo, leaving G4 to only air repeats of their original series beginning on September 1, 2014. Certain cable operators reported that the network would close on November 30, 2014, Some providers kept the channel on before its closure, but later replaced with a gray screen with G4's audio feed still being heard before removing G4 from their lineup completely.
AT&T U-verse and newly formed television provider
Google Fiber were among the last services to carry G4, and continued to broadcast the channel until its closure. G4's last program was the first episode of
X-Play at 11:30 p.m. ET on December 31, 2014. A note on the G4 website's program schedule was added to that particular episode saying "Thanks for watching G4." The network then closed after that episode with a game of
Pong on the screen (referencing the network's launch) gradually getting smaller and smaller before becoming just a small dot. A man's voice shouting "I'm at Comic-Con!" was then heard, followed by a "game over" sound from the Atari 2600 version of the game
Donkey Kong and the
Game Boy boot-up chime playing over an effect of an analog-era TV turning off, following this, the screen went black before pay TV services that carried the channel at the time of it closure displayed a message informing consumers that it had shut down.
2020–2022: Revival Pre-launch and B4G4 and
Extra, circa 2007. It was renovated to serve as the home of the G4 revival. On July 24, 2020, G4's
Twitter accounts for
Attack of The Show and
X-play, were reactivated to post a teaser video announcing a revival of the network slated for 2021. The teaser was released during "Comic-Con@Home", a virtual streaming edition of
San Diego Comic-Con. G4's website was reopened with a playable game of
Pong which, if won, redirected to a mailing list to sign up for updates and a free shirt promo code. The campaign was in-reference to the network's original launch in 2002 and their shutdown in 2014. Comcast would transfer operations of G4 from NBCUniversal to its
Spectacor division (former owners of the now-defunct
PRISM regional premium cable television channel). On August 12, 2020,
Olivia Munn, the former co-host of
Attack of the Show!, was reportedly in final talks for a multi-year deal with G4. On September 4, 2020, the official G4
YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring former
X-Play host
Adam Sessler as one of his fictional characters, Crazy Adam, asking for fans to submit applications to become a G4 host or simply nominate their favorite personalities with the
hashtag, #G4NeedsTalent. On November 16, 2020, G4 announced
A Very Special G4 Holiday Reunion Special, a scripted special hosted by
Ron Funches featuring interviews with
Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, Adam Sessler,
Morgan Webb,
Kristin Adams, and
Blair Herter. The special premiered on November 24 on
Twitch and
YouTube;
Syfy would also air the special on November 27. At the special's end, wrestler
Xavier "King" Woods / Austin Creed would be the first newly announced host for G4's relaunch, after beginning a campaign on Twitter to become a G4 personality in August 2020. On the same day of the special's premiere, G4 launched
Gravython, a charity drive that would be raising funds for a variety of community partners. On January 28, 2021, G4 announced that both
Attack of the Show! and
X-Play would be revived due to high demand from fans. They also gave a tentative date of mid-2021 for the network's relaunch. On February 12, 2021, the B4G4 iterations of
Attack of the Show! and
X-Play began, with Kevin Pereira and Adam Sessler returning to host their respective series; these involved humorous sketches for
AOTS and
Let's Plays with other gaming-based streamers and YouTubers alongside Sessler for
X-Play. On the same day, it was announced that Esports shoutcasters
Indiana "Froskurinn" Black and Ovilee May would be the network's new hosts, along with the series
The Bleep Esports Show, a satirical program focusing on current gaming-related news. In March, the network also began livestreaming on both Twitch and YouTube, where its hosts interact with the audience and do watch-alongs to new B4G4 videos. On April 2, 2021, G4 uploaded a video on their YouTube channel revealing the return of "Epic April", a month dedicated to new announcements. On April 5, G4 revealed the development of a new competitive series hosted by Xavier "King" Woods / Austin Creed in partnership with
WWE to air in the fall. On April 11, Esports shoutcaster,
The Titan Games commentator and former
AEW commentator Alex "Goldenboy" Mendez was announced to be joining the network as a new host. On April 14, 2021, G4 announced that
Ninja Warrior, an English-dubbed version of the Japanese show
SASUKE (itself the original Japanese version of
American Ninja Warrior), would be returning to the network with 3 new tournaments and a total of 167 episodes. On April 19, comedian and
YouTuber Kassem G was announced to be joining the network as a new host. On April 28, Adam Sessler and Kassem G revealed during a livestream that cosplayer Jefferson "Jeffersawrus" Carvey was the network's first #G4NeedsTalent hire. Its final "Epic April" announcement was made on the 30th, where
Virtual YouTuber and livestreamer character
CodeMiko, along with her creator known only as "The Technician", would be joining as a new host. On May 5, 2021, G4 was announced to be the official broadcaster of
Dungeons & Dragons Live, airing on July 16 and 17. On May 14, YouTuber and podcaster Gina Darling was revealed during a livestream with Adam Sessler and Kassem G to be joining as a new host.
Relaunch On October 12, 2021, it was announced that G4's cable network would officially relaunch on November 16, 2021. The show was scheduled to debut on December 7, 2021, at 6:30 pm
EST but due to technical difficulties involving
Amazon Web Services, it did not air in that timeslot. The show would officially debut at 10:30 pm
EST. On March 7, 2022, G4 launched a FAST channel on
Pluto TV called G4 Select, which carried most of G4's regular programming. As part of an exclusive partnership, the channel would also feature new content catered to free, linear streaming audiences. The channel was later added to
Vizio's WatchFree platform on June 16, 2022.
Second closure On October 16, 2022, it was announced that G4 would be shutting down after relaunching the previous year. Several factors that led to G4's discontinuation ranged from low viewership, a lack of audience strategy, ever-changing and absent leadership, competition with streaming content creators on
YouTube and
Twitch,
cord-cutting, underpromotion, and high expenditures. G4 Select would be removed from Pluto TV on October 19, 2022, during an episode of
Attack of the Show: Vibe Check, the network fully shutting down on October 21, ending two minutes into
Smosh; G4 Select would later close on Vizio. G4 in itself left
Philo,
YouTube TV,
Xfinity, and
Cox prior to the shutdown, with
Fios being the last to carry the network until its discontinuation on November 18, 2022, two days after the first anniversary of the relaunch. A screen reading "THANK YOU FOR WATCHING!" appeared after midnight, however Fios ended their signal of the network just seconds prior to midnight, cutting off in the middle of the sign-off. ==Programming==