Friday, August 26, 2005

Returned Call

From 1991 to 2004, one man attacked computer ignorance with gusto on television and radio. His name was Laporte... Leo Laporte. Many of those years were with the cable/satellite television series Call For Help (some with Screen Savers, Dvorak On Computers, Laporte On Computers, The Personal Computing Show and the Emmy-winning series The Site.) A battle started brewing when Comcast's G4 purchased TechTV and Laporte's appearances were being minimized. People wrote scathing forum posts (and I think I even whined about it) but Call For Help was given it's walking papers last year. To appease some viewers a Toronto-produced version of the show would later only air in Canada. Author and computer programmer Laporte has continued his radio shows which have become highly sought after podcasts.

It has now been announced that Call For Help will return to G4TV starting Monday the Aug. 27th. Leo is joined on the show by new co-hosts Amber MacArthur and Andy Walker (pictured on the far right... Leo is on the left.)

Call For Help has always been the kind of show where you could ask all those "stupid" questions you've been holding for fear of being ridiculed. Wonder why they call a byte a byte and a bit a bit? Wonder why sound and photo quality gets worse as it gets recompressed? No question is too small and they do a great job of slowly teaching you the terminology as they go. Well, at least they did. Now, all I can say is "Welcome back to my Tivo's Season Pass!" and "Thank You" to whoever got that brain transplant at G4.

8 comments:

LoraLoo said...

Woohooooo! That is really good news! I pretty much stopped watching that channel once it went to "G4". The programming was seriously poor. Now it's still in my remote favorites, but I usually just make a quick pass through.

I got to see Laporte live at Comdex a few years ago, he was really good with spot questions and very personable. I'm going to have to watch for the show's return!

Teri said...

I know you have been talking about this for a long time and I am happy for you that it coming back on the air.. Just what you need another show for your Tivo to tape :) hahhahaah

Unknown said...

I read somewhere that he filed a lawsuit against G4 when they cancelled his show cause he was like a part owner of Tech TV and his contract guaranteed that he would be on the show.

Fred said...

G4. That sounds like a droid on Star Wars.

RT said...

What's G4TV?

Martin said...

RT - Depending if you have cable or satellite and if they carry it, G4TV focuses on computer gaming (it used to be more about computer technology but we'll see if they figure out their niche later.

Martin said...

I have links for the podcasts for This Week In Tech and Leo Laporte: The Tech Guy At KFI but I am holding out on the iPod. I want one big enough for all my CDs. And listening to the podcasts at my computer doesn't work because I'm usually watching TV at the same time... I'm pretty nuts like that.

Hale McKay said...

I too enjoyed Leo's wit and way of passing info that even a novice could understand. Will look forward to his return. Thanks for the news.