Talk:TechTV

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A request has been made for this article to be peer reviewed to receive a broader perspective on how it may be improved. Please make any edits you see fit to improve the quality of this article.

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Peer review

TechTV

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I've listed this article for peer review because I've been working on it on and off, but I'm now seeing potential for a Good Article. Although I feel I've done the best I could manage with a cable channel article (using Paramount Television Network as my primary frame of reference), that subject matter is certainly not my forte when it comes to Wikipedia articles. Therefore I've decided to seek input from those more familiar and experienced in the hope that the article can be fine-tuned to a level worthy of GA nomination. If there's anything that seems off or missing as far as cable channel articles go, please let me know.

Thanks, Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a heartening development. While WP:TVS has many more GAs than it once did because of my work on individual broadcast stations, GAs on cable channels are rare, and the closest models are a bit funky (AMI-tv and FanDuel Sports Network Detroit). Even my work rarely goes into this space (Lifetime Medical Television). TechTV had a larger cultural impact than many channels that a) were primarily on digital cable and had fewer subs and b) lasted less than 10 years.

Here are some comments from me:

When did Ziff-Davis become Ziff Davis, unhyphenated? When I was doing some clipping hygiene, I noticed most sources hyphenated the name. Presumably at some point the company changed stylings, but that point might be after the time period they owned ZDTV.
MOS:'S: should be "Ziff Davis's" and not "Ziff Davis'".
{{Cite news}} has a |agency= parameter for when articles were written by the Associated Press or another wire service, and at least one citation could use that. The other thing I did not touch except citations I cleaned up is page numbers. In my page on citation hygiene WP:CLIP, I note, Make a note of the page number as printed. Page numbers may not match the printed page and, for non-digital microfilm sources, are almost never alphanumeric or reflective of sections. By the 90s, this was certainly true of almost all newspapers.
There are some sources I'd like to see, though getting them for you will require some shadow library business. 90s Broadcasting & Cable, before the digitized record that is the Broadcasting & Cable/Next TV online morgue (which in my experience is also missing things from the early 2000s), has multiple in-depth articles (I get 144 total hits, including ads, searching ProQuest on my end).
- They indicate there is more information on the distribution challenges ZDTV had at launch. It was separated from the part of Ziff-Davis that was IPO'd; B&C noted that less than a month before launch, they only had the Las Vegas system and no major players, in part because they weren't shelling out nine figures. (for my use: ProQuest 225359677)
- I also get a vibe from what I'm reading that TechTV was a bit adrift in a rapidly consolidating media landscape without cross-ownership and cross-promotion opportunities.
- The fact a Canadian version of this channel was launched merits a mention here. There also apparently was an international feed made available (ProQuest 221240251).
The amount of citations in the programming list is very good to see, even though there is a lot of primary sourcing here (acceptable for such a small claim). A lot of comparable articles and even entire lists are devoid of citations of programming.
- I wonder if some of the programs are too one-off or too promotional, though, to merit listing.
Is there any posthumous mention of this channel's impact? I'd feel like someone in tech would have written something.
- There's a 2008 article in the LA Times (ProQuest 422227564) that calls Revision3 a "genetic descendant" of TechTV, a 2007 newspaper review that noted that TechTV was "far superior" to G4 even though G4 decidedly survived the "merger",^[1] and a 2005 article that calls it basically a real estate deal (ProQuest 203802922).

It's tempting to come off the sidelines and work on this, particularly in regard to sourcing tied up in specialty databases. You've made a healthy start, but I think there are some things still meriting development. Sammi Brie (she/her · t · c) 07:43, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

^ Taylor, Bob (August 24, 2007). "G4 offers odd look at pop culture". The Herald. Rock Hill, South Carolina. p. Ticket 11. Retrieved March 18, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.

[Hera070824-1] Taylor, Bob (August 24, 2007). "G4 offers odd look at pop culture". The Herald. Rock Hill, South Carolina. p. Ticket 11. Retrieved March 18, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.

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