October 1st, 2006

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Television
10 Comments »

Why is There No Entertainment Tonight for Video Games?

In Canada, we can watch more than one half-hour Entertainment Tonight-style shows that cover celebrity news and entertainment. Yet, there are no shows for console and PC games.

I know that there are a couple of shows on speciality channels, but games are an eleven billion dollar industry that reaches that most desirable of demographics, 12 to 35 year-old males. Why isn’t there a gaming show on the mainstream or network channels?

Maybe 11 billion dollars isn’t enough to merit network attention? Maybe it’s too risky to make television that has very little female appeal (surely, though, no less appeal than sports)? Maybe the TV networks don’t want to provide free advertising to the thing that’s stealing their audience?

I really don’t know. Any thoughts? Any TV producers among today’s readers?

Comments: 10 Responses so far

Jeff
October 1st, 2006
10:34 pm

The only one that I know of that is on “regular” cable is electric playground (http://www.elecplay.com/). It’s mostly reviews, but it is far more interesting than ET and the like. Bonus: it’s based out of Vancouver!

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Jody
October 2nd, 2006
1:59 am

I don’t play video games as much as I used to, but I still have an interest in the industry. When I visit the U.S. on business I watch the , which is about the video gaming. Can we get that in Canada without a satellite? I never looked into it.

Else, I watch Electric Playground and Reviews On The Run.

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AxsDeny
October 2nd, 2006
3:46 am

In the States there is G4 TV. It’s ALL video game TV all the time.

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Jeremy
October 2nd, 2006
5:49 am

Their target audience would likely rather play video games than watch a show about them.

If they need info about a game, they’re likely to go online rather than wait for the the TV to get around to showing them what they want to know.

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Chris
October 2nd, 2006
9:59 am

Jeremy got it right. Gaming is an interactive experience, compared to TV at least - I’d much rather play a game than watch a show about games.

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Jody
October 2nd, 2006
10:52 am

> I’d much rather play a game than watch a show about games.

I’d rather watch someone play am RPG or adventure game then play it myself: I don’t have the patience to figure puzzles out and hunt for objectives, yet I like to learn about the evolving story.

My friends think I’m weird.

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Jeremy
October 2nd, 2006
3:45 pm

You are kind of weird Jody! ;)

Do you prefer to be the passenger in the car too?

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James
October 3rd, 2006
6:34 am

Celebrity ‘news’ shows are super cheap to produce for TV networks too because all the ‘news’ bits are pre-packaged releases. On a video game ‘news’ show what images would you show? Someone playing a game, or a geeky producer announcing a title?

Celebrity ‘news’ shows work because they’re cheap and pretty. Channels like to produce cheap; people like to look at pretty.

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Ryan Cousineau
October 4th, 2006
9:33 am

G4 is also available in Canada: I know because I get it (via StarChoice). G4 does about an hour-long daily show (Attack of The Show!) which includes a summation of video game news along with a wide variety of other nerd-centric news and silliness, and another show (X Play) which is nothing but video game reviews, albeit on a weekly schedule.

I suspect a better question is “why is there no nightly auto-info show?” since that’s a considerably larger market yet.

I think the answer may be partly that TV watchers are predisposed to being interested in entertainment news. Video gamers mostly get their video game news from Penny Arcade.

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Sophie
October 5th, 2006
7:07 am

actually, according to the BBC “women now account for around a third of UK gamers” (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5407490.stm)
so much for little appeal to women!

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