G4 TV’s Post-Frosk Rant Woes Continue As Network President Russell Arons Jumps Ship, Leaves Position After Less Than A Year
Spencer Baculi
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Things continue to stay rocky for the network who proudly promoted their host’s dismissal of fans dissatisfied with their host as sexist fanboys who should stop hoping for change and instead stop watching their offerings, as a new report has confirmed that G4 TV’s now-former president Russell Arons exited the network after less than a year in the position.
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As per an August 31st exclusive from Deadline, Arons made for the escape hatch sometime in July, though exact details surrounding her exit – including her reasons for doing so – remain unclear.
Notably, her departure earlier this summer came less than a year – about eight or nine months give or take – after she joined the network in September 2021.
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In her absence, Comcast Spectator executive Joe Marsh will see his role as the president of the company’s joint esports venture with Korea’s SK Telecom expanded to take over many of Aron’s now-former duties.
According to Deadline, Arons’ duties at G4 included handling the network’s “key business functions including advertising sales, programming and content, operations, marketing, finance, IT and HR”, as well as managing “the launch, growth and day-to-day operations of the network through content licensing, programming and production, development of content distribution and partnership deals.
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Following in the footsteps of former-G4 TV Senior BP Blair Herter, Arons’ departure comes just several short months after G4 host Indiana “Frosk” Black went on her aforementioned rant against viewers critical of her apparent lack of knowledge regarding the topics she was covering, an action which in turn led to massive drop-off in viewership for the network’s efforts to revive itself.
In January, the immediate aftermath of Frosk’s rant – which despite the network having once been so proud of it that they highlighted it on their social media accounts and even uploaded the moment to YouTube as its own separate video, has now had the latter privated from the official Xplay channel – saw the network lose 6,000 YouTube subscribers, with their total dropping from 498,000 to 492,000 over the course of just one week.
Source: G4, Xplay
Further, Frosk’s rant also ostensibly led to a staggering drop in the network’s viewership numbers.
Prior to her insulting of her audience, videos on the core G4 channel (which is now the official Xplay channel following a network restructuring in March) pulled in anywhere between 15,000-75,000 views, with content focusing on their hosts’ personalities doing significantly less well than reviews of widely-known games.
Source: G4, Xplay
As of April, the channel’s uploads were only averaging 15,000-20,000 viewers, with their best post-rant videos just barely glimpsing the 40,000 mark.
Unfortunately for the network, things have only gotten worse from there.
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As of writing, according to social media metric tracker Social Blade, the official Xplay channel currently holds 489,000 subscribers, losing roughly 8,000 viewers since January.
However, in what may be the one bright side for the network, their viewership numbers have remained roughly the same, with their most recent uploads pulling in anywhere on average between 8,000 – 20,000 viewers and those featuring particularly notable topics – such as an exploration of Chinese bootleg video games or an interview with High on Life voice actor Justin Roiland – garnering anywhere between 45,000 – 65,000 views.
Source: Xplay Social Blade
As of writing, neither Arons nor G4 have publicly commented on her exit.
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