Comcast announced today that it will purchase TechTV, the network creted by Zdnet and owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Programming Inc. When the deal closes, Comcast will merge TechTV with gamer lifestyle network G4.
Link to press release. UPDATE: Wired News has a story here, with more details.
Either way, industry observers think that TechTV and G4 are a good fit, and that both Comcast and TechTV will benefit because of the merger. "There's very good programming on TechTV that deserves to survive," says Laura Behrens, a senior media analyst at Gartner/G2, "and with an owner on the scale of Comcast, it now probably has a chance to survive."
But TechTV had been struggling for some time and after multiple rounds of layoffs it had been seen as an attractive acquisition target.
And because no one yet knows whether TechTV will suffer further layoffs, the mood at the company late Wednesday was grim, especially because the sale won't put to rest uncertainty over employees' futures. "After a while, I stopped paying attention," said one TechTV employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, about the acquisition rumors. "I stopped keeping track."
Link. (Thanks for the fact-check, Adam!)
