I never watched TechTV, despite having worked for on-air host Chris Pirillo and his Lockergnome venture for a couple of years. Don't ask me how I wound up at Lockergnome, because even I'm not sure. I'm not a computer or tech geek and hiring me to work there was like asking Jabba the Hutt to play the piano*. The channel began as ZDTV and then became TechTV, and then later G4. Pirillo is teaming up with Leo LaPorte, another on-air personality, to launch (eventually) a Website called UndoTV where talent from the now-defunct channel can upload their own content. Pirillo sees it as an obvious step in a changing television industry that has become more and more infatuated with how the Web can reach people. I have no idea if such an idea could work, but it seems to make some sense in this case, considering the kind of people who were into TechTV were already denizens of the internet to begin with. I wonder if other failing niche networks would be able to accomplish something similar. The idea that something that failed on TV could have new life online is a nice one, but is it overly optimistic?

[via Lost Remote]

*He has short arms and he's very fat, so I imagine it would be physically impossible for him to play the piano. Also, it's an Earth instrument so he probably wouldn't even know how to play it, or the proper scales and whatnot. Though I suppose he could play a wall of keyboards, and if you labeled the keys he could probably pound out something by Yes. I think the point is that my similes need work.

We could get into a whole TechTV/G4 debate all day and night long, but it's a tired debate at this point. Anyway, while my tired old ass can't stick around late enough to watch real TV at midnight, it's no surprise that I'm not exactly familar with a late-night block of programming on G4 called 'Midnight Spank'. Apparently I'm not alone in not watching Ed the Sock's Night Party, because G4 wants you to submit phone numbers of those counting sheep in order to "spank call" them into hopping out of bed and watching Braniac and Cinematech.

Hey, if anyone gets the bright idea to try this on me, I've got a late-night block of programming for you that I like to call 'Midnight Boot in Your Ass.'

[via ArsTechnica]