Merger and Consolidation
On March 25, 2004, Comcast's G4 gaming channel announced a merger with TechTV. This move became hugely controversial among loyal fans of TechTV and Leo Laporte, who, because of a contract dispute with Vulcan, left the channel. Shows with Laporte, including The Screen Savers and Call for Help, continued on with remaining staff taking over his hosting duties.
Around May 6, G4 announced the termination of 250 employees from the San Francisco office by July 16, 2004, allowing approximately 80 to 100 employees to transition to G4's main office in Los Angeles if they agreed to relocate there. Shows from TechTV that weren't redundant to G4's offerings continued on until July, when the closing of the TechTV Offices would close the respective stages for these shows in turn.
On May 10, 2004, G4 Media completed the acquisition of TechTV from Vulcan. G4techTV was launched in the U.S. on May 28, 2004. This led to the cancellation of many of the TechTV channels throughout carriers across the world (e.g.: systems with both channels active, systems limiting Comcast's number of channels on their lineup, etc.) On January 3, 2005, TechTV International began airing select programs from G4techTV. After the closure deadline passed on July 16, 2004, only Los Angeles produced shows would air on the new channel. The final production originating at TechTV in San Francisco was the July 16, 2004 episode of The Screen Savers (which aired on September 2, 2004).
On February 15, 2005, the TechTV brand was dropped from the United States G4techTV feed, leaving the network name as G4 – Video Game Television which also echoed the changes in programming made to the channel due to the merger for both G4's original offering and the greatly diminished TechTV originated shows (exceptions noted below); since then, G4 has gone through a rebranding and has changed all programming current and future to position itself as a male oriented network.
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