TechTV

• Peter Barnes, Fox Business Channel
• Erica Hill, HLN host
• Leo Laporte, Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech, founder of TWiT.tv
• Kris Kosach, Host Audiofile
• Scott Herriot, Anchor of Internet Tonight and Sasquatch Hunter
• Michaela Pereira, former HLN host
• Chris Pirillo, created own website
• Victoria Recaño, formerly at KTLA
• Becky Worley, tech contributor for ABC TV's Good Morning America
• Liam Mayclem, Formerly Correspondent Internet Tonight Host Audiofile NOW KCBS FOODIE CHAP KCBS RADIO
• Tammy Cavadias, Community Production Manager

Many of the founding staff of ZDTV had previously worked on MSNBC's The Site, which featured Dev Null, a virtual animated character voiced by Leo Laporte who interacted with host Soledad O'Brien. Improving on the technology used for Dev Null, ZDTV created two animated virtual characters who appeared as hosts for the network. Dash (voiced first by Paul McKinney and later by Patrick Flick and Chris Manners, with body performance by Jessa Brie Moreno and Slater Penney) and Tilde (voiced by Kate Botello and later by Laura LeBleu, with body performance by Jessa Brie Moreno and Slater Penney, in some support chat appearances Tilde was played by Theresa Quinn, Asst Production Manager) appeared in on-air and online promos for the network. Dash also appeared as a virtual correspondent on the show Internet Tonight in a segment called "The Homepage Hall of Fame" and briefly as the host of "Dash's Animation House."[6]

ZDTV logo

The channel originally launched on Monday May 11, 1998, on cable systems in Las Vegas, Detroit, parts of Georgia near Atlanta and parts of Maine.[7] Vulcan Ventures first invested in ZDTV, a network that supplemented content from Ziff-Davis' computer and technology based print publications (at the time including PC Magazine, MacWEEK, and eWEEK), in November 1998, acquiring a one-third interest from Ziff-Davis. In November 1999, Vulcan purchased the remaining two-thirds in a transaction that was completed on January 21, 2000. The deal (which permitted Vulcan to temporarily continue using the "ZD" initials and "red diamond" logo) was worth approximately $204.8 million.

An early adopter of ZDTV was Charter Communications (also owned by Paul Allen at the time), which began carrying the channel in Newnan, Georgia in July 1998.[8] Beginning on Saturday August 1, 1998, ZDTV was broadcast in its native San Francisco, when the channel struck a deal with DirecTV to become available on Channel 273, via the providers' satellite dishes.[9]

In July 2000, it was announced that ZDNet would be acquired by CNET, placing ZDTV in the awkward position of using the initials and logo of a company that soon would belong to its main TV programming rival. However, a new name was already being worked on.

On September 18, 2000, ZDTV was renamed TechTV, and a new on-air strategy was announced along with several new series including the music-technology series, AudioFile. Soon, TechTV made a huge commitment to enter into live broadcasting when it launched a nine-hour experimental news program called TechLive in April 2001. The show, which catered to daytraders and business types, never caught on with TechTV's audience. In November 2001, following a massive round of layoffs, TechLive was divided into three one-hour shows. In the spring of 2002, TechLive was cut further into just one thirty-minute daily news magazine show, with a focus less on tech news and more on how technology changed people's lives.

Beginning March 15, 2001, TechTV experienced repeated layoffs.[10] In 2002, Silicon Spin (an opinion forum hosted by PC Magazine editor John C. Dvorak from the original ZDTV launched in May 1998) and AudioFile (a show for digital music enthusiasts launched in August 2000) were canceled, with its hosts being absorbed onto other network programs. 2003 saw the introduction of several new shows (such as Performance, Robot Wars, and Unscrewed with Martin Sargent).

In late 2001 and early 2002, many Comcast cable systems dropped TechTV from their channel lineups. At the time, some viewers speculated that this was done to eliminate a competitor to the Comcast-owned G4. When Comcast's G4 Media acquired TechTV and merged it with G4 in 2004, a second theory emerged, which suggested that Comcast's actual motive was to lower TechTV's value, and ultimately its asking price.

TechTV was also broadcast over the air on KTQW in Wichita, Kansas until the TechTV name was dropped during the G4 merger.[11]

In Davenport, Iowa from early 2001. St. Ambrose University carried the show feed for most of the day and early evening on their cable channel. For a short time after the change to G4TechTV it still carried the feed. It was dropped after complaints about some of the G4 later programming.

A Canadian version of TechTV launched on September 7, 2001, as a joint venture of TechTV, Rogers Media, and Shaw Communications. The channel would later become G4techTV Canada to coincide with the American merger of TechTV and G4. The channel would change its name once again in mid-2009 to G4 Canada. In 2004, TechTV launched on Foxtel Digital in Australia. After the merger with G4, TechTV (then called G4techTV) left Australia lineups as its international feed ceased. On Malaysia's ASTRO platform, repeats of the international feed was run for some time after the international feed ceased before starting to import G4TV programming and retransmitting them locally on the same channel as the public educational service TV Pendidikan from 2002 to 2006. In Japan, Sony's So-net channel aired several TechTV programs until the fall of 2005 (they aired reruns after May 2004). In New Zealand, TechTV aired on Saturn Communications's channel 34 until May 2004. In addition to those countries, TechTV had existence in Russia and the United Kingdom.

The Screen Savers survived somewhat in Attack of the Show!, remaining an open-format hosted talk show. On March 17, 2005, the staff made an announcement that they intended to reformat The Screen Savers to better fit the network, including the change of its name (a computer term for a program to protect a monitor from burned-in imagery, which no longer fit when The Screen Savers stopped covering computer self-help and DIY programming). It changed to Attack of the Show (a reference to the Star Wars prequel "Attack of the Clones"), and while still covering technology to a lesser extent, it also covers autos, sports, movies, new products and pop culture. Kevin Rose, Sarah Lane, and Brendan Moran stayed on after the transition to Attack of the Show for a short time, but Rose left on May 27, 2005, and both Lane and Moran left after their marriage on April 6, 2006, marking the final TechTV on-camera staff's exit from the program. Kevin Pereira was the sole staff member who was present after the show moved to Los Angeles and remained host of Attack of the Show with other post-merger G4 staff until his departure, May 31, 2012.

Six TechTV personalities, Kevin Rose, Sarah Lane, Morgan Webb, Adam Sessler, Chi-Lan Lieu and Brendan Moran relocated to Los Angeles to join G4. Only two TechTV shows, Anime Unleashed and X-Play, survived the merger without any major changes. Anime Unleashed (and in turn, all of the anime series which aired on the block) was canceled in March 2006. X-Play was the last TechTV-created show in production under G4 until it was announced in late 2012 that it and Attack of the Show would both be cancelled in December 2012.

In April 2012, Sessler was let go from G4.[13][14] A proper reason was not given, however there have been rumors of a contractual dispute.[15] Sessler was the last of the original hosts from the initial launch of ZDTV in 1998. When the network withdrew all their live programming in December 2012, Blair Butler and Webb were the only remaining TechTV personalities working at G4.