July 15, 1996(1996-07-15)– August 18, 1997(1997-08-18)
The Siteis an hour-long TV program devoted to the Internet revolution. It debuted in July 1996 with MSNBC's launch, and aired Monday through Saturday, reaching 35 million homes[citation needed]. Soledad O'Brien hosted The Site, along with her animated co-host Dev Null, voiced by Leo Laporte.
The Site covered technology in all forms, from technical aspects to news and culture. The show was sometimes billed as "the Net's evening news" [citation needed]. Guests included musical artists, authors and columnists, who spoke about the impact of technology on their work.
History
The NBC News executive in charge of creating The Site was David Bohrman, who was also the network's Executive Producer of Special Events and Breaking News. Bohrman was sent out to San Francisco to create and launch the program. His hiring of O'Brien is described in her book, The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities. The idea of Dev Null was also Bohrman's (after experimenting with virtual set technology at NBC the year before). Leo Laporte wore a motion suit, had an IFB earpiece, so he could hear O'Brien, and his animated image was rendered in real-time by an Onyx SGI computer. The artwork for Dev was designed by Protozoa.
The Site won many awards and was named the best broadcast on internet and high technology. It also was the first television show to have an award-winning website. One reviewer hailed The Site as the best program on the fledgling MSNBC. The show gained Soledad O'Brien Internet fame and the nickname "Goddess of the Geeks." while Lloyd Grove in The Washington Post dubbed her "television's first cyberbabe."
The Site was preempted for two weeks in favour of news programs during the death of Diana, Princess of Wales during September 1997. It was never brought back, and the show was pulled without a send-off. Many fans of the show petitioned MSNBC to bring it back to no avail. The Site was reincarnated as The Screen Savers less than one year later, hosted by Leo Laporte beginning with the launch in May 1998 of the new cable network ZDTV (Ziff-Davis Television), until its cancellation after the takeover by Comcast.
The Site was a forerunner to an entire technology channel called ZDTV, later renamed TechTV, which merged to become G4. After The Site was cancelled by MSNBC, and the show's staff were rehired by the parent company, Ziff-Davis, to launch ZDTV. The new channel was devoted to digital technology, and it was substantially an extension of the themes presented by The Site. The channel gained in popularity and was rebranded to TechTV in 2001.
Key contributors and on-air regulars
Cliff Stoll, Denise Caruso, Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Matthew Hawn, John Gilles, Ali Hossaini, Shauna SampsonDavid Bohrman and animated character Dev Null. Broadcast designers Victoria Webb, Susan Roderick and Executive Producer Nancy Juliber were integral to the on-air team, winning several BDA awards for work. Richard Stutting was Art Director for the award-winning website. Victoria Webb enlisted 3RingCircus to provide the network package for ZDTV.
A nightly five-minute segment in which O'Brien engaged in spontaneous tech talk with a virtual reality cartoon character, Dev Null, was animated in real time on Silicon Graphics computers. The character was in fact ZDTV journalist Leo Laporte, who did the voice and actions while wearing a motion capture suit. When O'Brien sat at an espresso bar to read email from viewers, Dev Null flirted with her while answering her computer questions. She recalled, "One of the reasons that segment of the show worked is that I could not see him as I was talking to him, and the segment was unscripted. He was funny, and his jokes were not gags."
Producers on The Site, many of whom got their start in television there, eventually became executives at other innovative channels, including LinkTV, Oxygen Media, G4 and LAB HD.
The Screen Savers is an American TV show that aired on TechTV from 1998 to 2005. The show launched concurrently with the channel ZDTV on May 11, 1998. The Screen Savers originally centered on computers, new technologies, and their adaptations in the world. However, after it was taken over by G4, the show became more general-interest oriented and focused somewhat less on technology. The final episode of The Screen Savers aired on March 18, 2005. Repeat episodes continued to air until March 25, 2005 when its replacement program Attack of the Show! began 3 days later on March 28, 2005. Two spiritual successors to The Screen Savers, This Week in Tech on the TWiT Network with Leo Laporte and Tekzilla on Revision3 with Patrick Norton, were started after the original show concluded. On April 19, 2015, Leo Laporte announced The New Screen Savers, which began airing on TWiT network May 2, 2015.
TechTV was a 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming. At the height of its six-year run, TechTV was broadcast in 70 countries, reached 43 million households, and claimed 1.9 million unique visitors monthly to its website. A focus on personality-driven product reviews and technical support made it a cultural hub for technology information worldwide, still existing today online through its former hosts' webcasts, most notably the TWiT Network.
Martin Sargent is an American television personality and was co-host of the This WEEK in FUN podcast with Sarah Lane. He is most well known from his time as a Segment Producer on TechTV's The Screen Savers and later as the host of his own late night talk show Unscrewed with Martin Sargent.
In some operating systems, the null device is a device file that discards all data written to it but reports that the write operation succeeded. This device is called /dev/null on Unix and Unix-like systems, NUL: or NUL on CP/M and DOS, nul on OS/2 and newer Windows systems, NIL: on Amiga operating systems, and NL: on OpenVMS. In Windows Powershell, the equivalent is $null. It provides no data to any process that reads from it, yielding EOF immediately. In IBM operating systems DOS/360 and successors and also in OS/360 and successors such files would be assigned in JCL to DD DUMMY.
Catherine Michelle Schwartz is an American television presenter. She was formerly a co-host on the TechTV television program Call for Help with Chris Pirillo and Leo Laporte.
Xplay is a TV program about video games. The program, known for its reviews and comedy skits, aired on G4 in the United States and had aired on G4 Canada in Canada, FUEL TV in Australia, Ego in Israel, GXT in Italy, MTV Russia & Rambler TV in Russia, NET 25 & Solar Sports in the Philippines, and Adult Swim and MuchMusic in Latin America.
Leo Laporte is the former host of The Tech Guy weekly radio show and founder of TWiT.tv, an Internet podcast network focusing on technology. He is also a former TechTV technology host (1998–2008) and a technology author. On November 19, 2022, actor, writer, musician, and comedian Steve Martin called into Laporte's radio show to announce Leo's retirement from The Tech Guy radio show. Laporte's last new radio show was December 18, 2022 with reruns for the remainder of the year. Rich DeMuro later appeared on the show to announce that he will be taking over in January with a weekly show, recorded on Saturdays, called "Rich On Tech."
ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication.
G4techTV was a short-lived American cable and satellite channel resulting from a merger between Comcast-owned G4 and TechTV. The network officially launched on May 28, 2004.
Fresh Gear is a television program on ZDTV then known as TechTV that showcased the latest in personal technology. It was hosted by Stephanie Siemiller and Chris Leary. The original hosts were Jim Louderback and Sumi Das.
María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien is an American broadcast journalist and executive producer. Since 2016, O'Brien has been the host for Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, a nationally syndicated weekly talk show produced by Hearst Television. She is chairwoman of Starfish Media Group, a multiplatform media production company and distributor that she founded in 2013. She is also a member of the Peabody Awards board of directors, which is presented by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Kate Botello is a former American television personality best known for her work on the San Francisco, California-based ZDTV.
G4 Media, LLC is an in-name only unit of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming which maintains the programming of G4, a defunct 24-hour cable and satellite channel dedicated to video games, along with its former competitor, TechTV/ZDTV. NBCUniversal holds a controlling interest in G4 Media, with Dish Network holding a minority interest of approximately 12% because its former parent company held a minority interest in TechTV and owned Dish Network. Prior to the Comcast/NBCUniversal merger, Comcast owned the network, previously named G4 Media, Inc.
Internet Tonight was a television program on the cable network ZDTV. The show combined the "effervescent moxie" of Michaela Pereira with the "dry wit" of Scott Herriott, to bring the viewers the latest in Internet trends, humor, and news. Due to the production value it was called the "absolute slickest show [TechTV] had" but was canceled when "Paul [Allen] took a dislike to the show ... and just killed it"
HOW TO Channel was an Australian cable and satellite television channel. It was carried on the Foxtel Digital, Optus TV featuring Foxtel Digital and Austar Digital platforms. It was owned by Premier Media Group, a 50/50 joint venture of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and News Corporation.
Glenn Rubenstein is a writer, director, and journalist based in Northern California.
David Lawrence Prager is one of the co-founders and Vice President of Special Projects for Revision3. He has also worked for ZDTV, TechTV, and G4.
The Tech Guy was a widely syndicated US radio show hosted by Leo Laporte, formerly of TechTV and later with TWiT.tv. The show, which was first exclusively broadcast on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles, was picked up for syndication by Premiere Networks in February 2007. Laporte streamed video of his side of the show on TWiT Live, including caller audio. The show was available live on Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
Dev Null was an animated virtual reality character created in 1996 by Leo Laporte for MSNBC's computer and technology TV series The Site. Espresso barista Dev talked with host Soledad O'Brien each weeknight in a five-minute segment. Laporte was awarded a 1997 Northern California Emmy for his nightly performances as cyber character Dev Null.
David Bohrman was an American news executive, working in network television news, cable news, new media, internet, convergence, and consulting. Bohrman created almost a dozen new TV news programs at ABC News, NBC News (MSNBC), CNN, and TechTV.
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