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G4 RETURNS! REVIEW

There are zombies in television. And not just the ones from films or TV shows. Yes, there are zombie shows but there is also Zombie Television shows. Shows that seemingly can never die such as the infinite reruns of Andy Griffith show to Law and Order. Then there are shows that smash open their own graves to reboot on a wave of nostalgia. And then there is a rarity: the coffin exploding corpse of an entire channel. Welcome to the new G4.

The original channel was launched in 2002 by Comcast. It was created to rival TechTV but to try to get MTV viewers. In 2004, it merged with TechTV which at the time had popular shows like Screentime where viewers would call in with computer problems or hardware recommendations as well as tech news and commentary. But the merger did not go well as the TechTV crew in San Francisco did not want to make the move to LA. By 2005, a new network president began consolidating channels including G4. By 2006, G4 was just a program block on the E! channel. By 2010, Direct TV dropped G4 which was the signal of the slow demise of the brand. Following the NBCUniversal merger with Comcast, in 2012 Adam Sessler was let go and the beginning of syndicated reruns of old TV shows such as COPS began to eat up G4 program times. At the end, network suits tried to brand, for no apparent reason, G4 with Esquire Magazine. I guess the bosses wanted to bury the G4 network in a nice suit when it went off the air at the end of 2014.

New Streams

In the middle of a global pandemic, July 24, 2020 marked the announcement of the return of G4. This time, G4 would be a network on digital platform(s) such as You Tube, Twitch, etc.

The relaunch happened with the commitment of a few of the old and bunch of new, younger hosts. Kevin Pereira was the main MC on the old Attack of the Show! program. He worked his way from an intern to production assistant to segment producer to sudden TV host. He had a irreverent personality which was the culture of his shows. Adam Sessler also re-signed to the relaunch. Sessler is the best video essayist on the planet. His game reviews are informative and entertaining even to non-gamers. As a former print journalist, his interviews with game developers are spot on newsworthy.

The new faces come from various gaming backgrounds. Ovilee May is an eSports host who came from League of Legends arena. Goldenboy (Alex Mendez) is also comes from LOL to be a gamer and eSports host. Frosk is a competitive pro LOL player. This trio is the foundation of several new streams, including eSports, competitive games and industry chats.

From the streaming home gamer segment comes Gina Darling, Will Neff and Jirard Khalil, who has filled in for Sessler in game reviews. You can tell these younger hosts are thrilled to be hanging out making highly produced content on live streams.

G4TV is now showing X-Play, game reviews of Adam Sessler and others. X-Play Talk is a roundtable of game and industry discussions.

The Beach House is the beta version of the hallmark network stream. Pereira jokes that it is not the new Attack of the Show for IP licensing purposes, but takes jabs at the old Screensaver content from time to time. This live stream often includes sharing weird videos, comedy bits (featuring Kassem, a YouTube comedian) and hands-on games.

For example, when the MCs questioned whether a viral video about catching beer cans launched from a basketball was true, the staff tried to replicate the video in their parking lot:

G4 is currently putting out between 4 to 6 hours of live broadcasts each week. Most of it is scripted but since it is a live stream there are plenty of ad-lib, off-the-rails comments and jokes.

CodeMiko

The attention getting hire for a new host was CodeMiko. CodeMiko is an interactive avatar who has a good following on YouTube and Twitch, often suspended for PG-17 plus content.

Project CodeMiko is a virtual streamer created using the Unreal Engine software and controlled via an Xsens motion capture suit. The suit alone can cost upwards of $30,000. The process of devving, engineering, and rigging (essentially, mapping Miko's body so that she can move without screen lag) was all done by the same person nicknamed The Technician. In terms of what the actual content Miko creates on Twitch, it mostly revolves around interviews with fellow streamers and hanging out with her chat. The thing that makes Miko shine, on top of being a novelty on her own, is the interactivity present in every broadcast. As the Technician describes it, the streams are a “quasi interactive rpg, where it's kind of like an arcade and a game and a stream and an RPG at the same time.”

Youna Kang, the Miko creator and The Technician, 31, created her online 3D Virtual YouTuber persona CodeMiko as a Twitch streamer personality. Kang came from a design/graphics/anime background. The backstory for her character avatar is that Miko wants to be a real character in a video game. That is her dream. And that she wants to make lots of money.

CodeMiko may be the first interactive, live virtual streamer but she is not technically the first artificial TV personality. Max Headroom is a British fictional artificial intelligence (AI) character, known for his wit, stuttering and electronically altered voice. He was introduced in early 1985. The character was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel, and Rocky Morton. Max was portrayed by Matt Frewer and was called “the first computer generated TV personality,” although the computer generated appearance was achieved with an actor in prosthetic makeup and harsh lighting, in front of a blue screen.

Max also had humble beginnings as a music video television host in the UK. His personna was to be a white, middle business class man who had a satirical viewpoint on videos. The character's popularity brought about a television series. The background story provided for the Max Headroom character in his original appearance was dominated by television and large corporations, devised by George Stone and eventual script writer Steve Roberts. The AI of Max Headroom was shown to have been created from the memories of crusading journalist Edison Carter. The character's name came from the last thing Carter saw during a vehicular accident that put him into a coma: a traffic warning sign marked MAX. HEADROOM.

The Max Headroom show is a classic, well ahead of its time. Its futurist story lines written in the mid 1980s have all basically come true; from people addicted to their television monitors, computer data dominating our lives, to designer baby genetics, to global security hackers and people translated into Big Data.

CodeMiko has great potential to be a new foil for the G4 hosts. Her brassy, naive and naughty personality checks off the biggest demographic for YouTube and Twitch viewers: men from age 18-30.

The Future

As Max Headroom's tag line was 20 Minutes into the Future, what does the future hold for the new G4?

First and foremost, the channel is entertaining. The hosts and guests are actually having FUN in a playful way but knocking up against some broadcast boundaries. From an early content aspect, it has been good. The network has said it would be adding new programs over time, including wrestling-MMA. But it appears the foundation will be related to games and gamers since Twitch has created dozens of full time paid game streamers with sizable audiences.

The G4 problem has always been finding and maintaining an audience. It has the disadvantage of being an old school, studio based, labor intensive broadcast network show. Twitch streamers have an advantage of getting a camera, a high speed game specific computer hardwire and high speed internet connection to broadcast content from their living rooms.

The current hosts do beg for subscribers to like, subscribe and notify because those are the monetization points under the new platform revenue sharing dynamics. Interactive chats and viewer engagement is also a premium pay-out. G4TV currently has 413,000 subscribers but it really needs millions more to compete with Gen X talents and influencers. It will also probably need the dreaded advertisements in order to fund the large staff and studio spaces. Younger stream viewers are pretty adverse to ads mucking up their eye pixel dilations.

Novelty, such as a larger role for Code Miko or some new technology, and solid and consistent commentary from Sessler and the gamers can keep hope alive for a successful run. If G4 can build up its brand to the point of hosting eSports events for second tier titles, it may get the sponsorship cushion it needs in order to survive. G4 is still owned by Comcast, a cable operator whose cord cutting customers continue to increase while it pivots to be an ISP.

Overall, G4 is worth checking out. It is solid production with many laughs during the shows.

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LABOR DAZE COMMENTARY

Lost on many scholars, pundits and average people is that an individual's labor is their most important asset. Labor is the work that creates wages or income. The amount of wages is directly affected by an individual's talent. A popular rock star is going to earn more money than a burger store cashier. The singer has worked to create a unique talent to get a large enough following to support him or her. A retail cashier or clerk is near the the bottom tier of wages since the normal job does not involve extraordinary skill or special talents.

But most people are conditioned by politics not to see themselves as the wealth creation engine in their lives.

How unfortunate. Growing up, little kids were often asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Little boys used to say a fireman, a police man, a baseball player, a doctor or an astronaut. Little girls used to say teachers, nurses, fashion designers, models, actors or an athlete. Do parents or family members today ever ask that question to young children?

What are young people obsessed with? TikTok videos, SNS influencers, video games, their smartphones, dangerous Internet challenges, and youth sports?

A recent new article from Seoul, South Korea stated that a majority of parents now believe their children will have less opportunities to have a better life than themselves. It is bleak poll result since youth in industrial countries have been losing interest in their parents' dream goals to an almost apathetic journey through life: misery in education, self induced loneliness with no motivation to date or marry, and a daunting future of a gig economy worker.

Employers are knocking their collective heads against the wall since there are millions of jobs going unfilled during the pandemic. Employers in manufacturing and construction have had worker shortages for years. These are not minimum wage jobs. But there is a growing sentiment among businessmen that the work force does not want to work or work very hard. The extended and expanded unemployment benefits during the lock downs (including the first $10,000 tax free) made it harder to get the unemployed off their sofas and back into the work place. Their landlord could not evict them; they were getting “free” money from the government so life was good. Some have gotten the taste of liberal basic income programs. And they like it.

Union membership continues to ebb to low levels after court cases ruled mandatory dues for non-members is wrong. Right to work states have gotten businesses to move from more burdensome union states to save costs. Taxes and benefits are the noose and gallows for many companies.

But even mom and pop stores such as restaurants or bars cannot re-open because their old workers refuse to come back. Even at $15 per hour and thousand dollar signing bonuses, fast food operators cannot get cashiers or cooks. Leaders decry industries moving toward kiosk ordering systems and robotic servers but those industries cannot hire enough workers to make their businesses run. A restaurant that cannot staff its dining room or kitchen cannot be a profitable full-time restaurant. The exploding costs for food and labor make it nearly impossible to survive already thin profit margins.

There is a growing divide among employers desperate for workers and labor whose expectations for easy money and personal freedom veto a normal 8 hour work day at someone's retail business or factory.

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THE WHETHER REPORT

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STATUS

Question: Whether Apple's new child protection photo policy will adversely impact its user security and privacy reputation?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

Question: Whether studios new hybrid movie distribution system will be harmful to theater owners and movie patrons?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

Question: Whether business demands for workers return to the office will result in an employee revolt with demand for continued flex time and telecommuting days ?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

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