When you buy a blog, you're after one of two things:

1.) The channel
2.) The talent

Since I've never really typed [www.televisionwithoutpity.com] into my Microsoft Internet Findy Box, I'd assume it's the latter here. And how stupid can old media be, really? Do they honestly think it's the SITE that matters, as if the WordPress plugins and graphics created by the pioneers are what draw people? They should have to write down the entire value of this investment. I wonder how they book the value of this business now....hmm, I think I need to call an accounting friend...

Sounds like NBC's lawyers need to start incorporating some creative non-competition covenants into their bloggy purchase agreements.

I've been a fan of these three nerd bombs since TWoP was Mighty Big TV and Fametracker had forums. Considering how essential their cut-throat, geek-loving editorial and organizational styles have been to the success of the site, I have a hard time believing it will have the same bite and appeal without them. I'm sure they were being pressured to include recaps of The Millionaire Matchmaker and to nice up recaps of Bravo shows.

Sad face.

Do people even read blogs anymore? I thought just commenting was where it was at.

My guess? Someone at one of the networks realized that between them they know the plots of every TV show aired over the past 10 years, and therefore are in a perfect position to write "new" shows that seem exactly like the old ones.

I'm not familiar with the site at all, but since Bravo was involved, I bet their leaving had something to do with being forced to think, say, and type "bravotv.com" over and over and over again.

I just can't wait for their bands, isn't that mandatory now when you sell your blog to the suits?

I hope one is called "...and you will know us by the trail of dead meta".

Shouldn't the hed be "And This Is Why Corporations Shouldn't Buy Blogs"?

Beware any media blog where the founders go by shitty nicknames. The only reason I'm here is because Nick Denton goes by the name "Nick Denton" and not "Mozza", "Mozz", "Mozzeltoff" or "Nickster". I'm also here because you can say what you want about anybody and not get execut

VirusWithShoes's ability to comment is not enabled.

I say good riddance. I stopped enjoying TwoP long ago when their moderators were over-controlling about what people could and could not say. God forbid you made a comment like someone else did 20 pages earlier, it would get you warned. In fact, they liked to warn people over the tiniest things.

It was as if they didn't want people coming to their web site. A strange thing to do, by the way, if one hopes to make any revenue from advertising.

Because I turned away from TwoP,, I started a few TV shop blogs of my own, and get decent traffic. I really don't need them anymore.

@VirusWithShoes: Stop scaring us like that.

Quick summary: "Staff changes at TWoP/Bravo. Send tips?"

Denton (4:56:23 p.m.): the ideal gawker item is something triggered by a quote at a party, or an incident, or a story somewhere else

Denton (4:56:55 p.m.): and serves to expose hypocrisy, or turn conventional wisdom on its head

Denton (4:57:03 p.m.): and it's 100 words long

Denton (4:57:08 p.m.): 200 max

Denton (4:57:19 p.m.): any good idea can be expressed at that length

@ambitious: I still miss the fametracker boards.

@In Other News...: The headline is reminding me of the "lessons" on Arrested Development: "And that's why you always leave a note."

I like TWOP. I have a feeling the talent will suffer a bit now that the founders are gone, but it depends which recappers decide to leave with them.

@WifeMotherCrip: I LOVED when the Fametracker boards imploded and everybody said what they'd been thinking about the slightly capricious whims of WingChun and then Glark shut the whole thing down. That was truly primo stuff.

@PimpMyCouch: It would be pretty funny if a Bravo exec walked into his office to find J. Walter Weatherman's arm on his desk.

Since Bravo bought TWoP it hasn't been as much fun. The moderators are way picky. I got tired of being "warned" about everything all the time. I was told to keep my sexual fantasies to myself because I said that football players' butts look hot in their uniform. WTF? Anyway, I never go to that site anymore. Too many rules!

@azi: I've read about that! And other stories about random banning of forum posters, mainly because they insulted the mods (who were all friends of WingChun and Glark).

@moff: Hee! Actually, it'd be better if he knocked off the arm and blood came spurting out instead. Like, walking and reading the Blackberry at the same time.

I always assumed TWoP got most of its traffic from the forums. I know NBC seems to be run by eight-year-olds lately, but I don't think they would have fired the three founders just because the site ragged on Hey Paula.

I stopped going, too. But most of it was the site redesign and the fact that TWoP just didn't seem to be as snarky anymore. It totally felt corporate.

The problem is that TWoP used to beautifully self-contained -- maybe a dozen shows were featured, all of which had been selected based on what they felt would resonate with their target demographic, and the recappers were all insanely talented at what they did. Sars, Wing Chun, and Glark would personally edit the recaps and check in on the boards, and yes it was a bit of a dictatorship, but those are the breaks.

Now it's just this great big flood of shows and all the crazed, obsessive, juvenile commenters that used to just stick to the official boards and leave the erudite and reasoned discussions to cooler heads. I used to be all over TWoP, but I can't get a foot in the door now between all the 'OMG SANJYA IZ SO QT!!!!!1!1!' and the 'I can't believe he got kicked off the show! I cried for six hours and divorced my husband and joined a cult because there's not justice in this world if Chris got cut from Project Runway!'

TVgasm all over again.

I actually sent an email to one of them hoping for some more info, but no dice. They responded just to say they were sticking to the story on the website. I kind of hate the new TWOP anyway. I liked it in its cheap old school days with the little scratchy drawings.

@Colonel Mustard: You put it very well, I think. I met a good friend on TWoP, he recapped something and I wrote to him and we have been friends ever since. When it was MBTV, it was actually my home page, and it had a feel of a very small, secret community that you didn't want too many people finding out about.
I stopped even trying to access the forums over there long ago, though. The level of discourse used to be pretty sparkling. Now it is, as you say, kind of on the text-message-y side. Buncha morons.

I thought Nick's post from yesterday was the backstory.

I have a LONG Telvision Without Pity story, but it's a juicy one. I emailed this to Denton under separate cover, but he asked me to post it in the comments.

This might be a good example of the kind of business Tara Ariano practices. Let me be clear; I never dealt with Sarah Bunting or David Cole, but from my experiences with her, I always perceived the power dynamic at Uber to be "we do what Tara wants."

Several years ago, I was a very frequent commenter on TWoP and Uber's once-good fame blog, Fametracker. I discovered TWoP when it used to be Mighty Big TV and aspired to be a recapper (big dreams, I know!) In one Fametracker thread, Tara opined that the same celebrity questions kept coming up over and over again so I emailed her and volunteered to do a Fame FAQ. She enthusiastically agreed to the idea. I figured I'd get my foot in the door and ingratiate myself with the moderators by offering to freelance (emphasis on the "free") the piece.

I spent about a week researching a number of stories, wrote them up pithily and sent them off to Tara. She quickly responded that she loved them. Since she responded so positively to them, naturally I asked her when they'd go on the site. She put me off for weeks, ultimately months, by saying that they were retooling the site, and once they were done the Fame FAQ would go up. I would quote directly from these emails, but unfortunately all this business was conducted via my college email account, which has been closed for several years.

Eventually, a YEAR after I had sent her the as-yet-unpublished Fame FAQ, I got a cryptic email from Tara saying that I should add some stuff to my Amazon wish list. About a week after that, I received an iPod mini in the mail with a note that read (this is from memory) "Thanks for all your hard work. Sorry we never used your piece. --Tara" Shortly after that, Tara and the other mods announced that they were closing the Fametracker boards permanently.

I was very, very disappointed that she put me off for A YEAR. I never told her this. I was also disappointed that I let her buy me off with an iPod.

There was a tipping point where the forums got unweildy. When once it was fun to check in the morning after whatever show and read a few pages of amusing and sometimes insightful comments, it got to the point where there'd be 20 pages of frothing at the mouth about what a bitch Lorelai was to perfect Luke and what a slut Rory is. There need to be enough posters to get a discussion going, but not so many that keeping up with a topic becomes a chore--it's science.

The Fametracker forum meltdown was glorious. How many years is it now? Three? Four?

@Colonel Mustard: To quote several TWOP commenters: wordy mcword. (Honestly. That is how they agree with one another.)
I do like reading the boards and forums after watching shows like "Lost", just to see how others reacted and what their theories might be, but I steer clear of the ones that nearly come to virtual blows over whether or not Jim said goodbye to Karen before leaving New York for Pam, and if he did he's a dink.

The site lost a lot of it's bite when the Bravo took over the site, though there was still a lot of good in it. You can actually track it. Part of the beauty of the site was that the people recapping really knew their stuff on a given show, they had strong feelings, one way or another. And the Glarkware TWoP tshirts? Awesome. Now, not so much. I swear, if Ms. Alli or M. Giant or Kekler leave, I'm washing my hands of it.

TWoP was building a larger and larger fan base. If Bravo had just left them to it, they probably would have given them the same number of eyes, and would have done so without the appearance of selling out, which they do kind of seem to have done.

Damn it, they broke my website.

@Constant Dater: Four, I think. I had just graduated from college.

@Colonel Mustard: Well put. The site worked better when it featured only those shows that had cult audiences and/or had the kind of intricate plotting you needed help keeping track of (Buffy, Lost, Doctor Who, etc.). These days, is there really a pressing demand for recaps of Samantha Who? Since the scope of the site expanded, the quality of the recaps has dropped off, too, and the boards have gotten unwieldy. It's a shame - yet another story of media consolidation fucking up something good...

@PimpMyCouch: I am with you, my friend. i also still read the recaps (though they aren't quite as funny as they used to be) even if I watched the show in question.

@Wendy_Kroy: Just wanted to add a "hell yes" to this.

@Wendy_Kroy: Also the weecaps are pointless; not funny or insightful, just a basic recap you could find anywhere.

Rumor has it that Bravo fired them, though I haven't heard the reasoning behind it.

@ADismalScience: They apparently have put in the non-competition clauses. Jacob used to do the most amazing analyses of Doctor Who - witty, literary, full of connections and allusions I never picked up on (they are still on the site). When the new bosses put the kibosh on his Who posts, he responded to a question about writing a book in the negative, as it would compete with the very recaps which had just been cancelled. I believe "fucktards" is the word I'm looking for.

However, I will say that to their credit, the buy-out hasn't stopped the recappers from ripping on Bravo or NBC offerings, or ladling steaming bowlfuls of contempt on "Top Design." Soooo, when's the second season of THAT coming? And will it be titled "Goil's Revenge"?

@xfool92: I'm so with you. I was a big fan, but a I rarely go there anymore. I've been "warned" so many times for mundane things; I was once even warned for mentioning one episode of a show in a post about another episode of the show! Once I was so confused about why I was warned that I actually wrote a message to Miss Alli, one of the moderators, asking her to please explain what I had done wrong since my comments didn't seem to violate any rules. I made sure to be civil because at that time I still actually liked the site, and didn't want to be banned. Of course, she never responded. She was quick to warn me but couldn't respond when I asked for an explanation. I have also noticed that several of my posts disappeared from the site if I happen to even mention or direct a comment to the moderator. I didn't even get warnings those times, they just took them down.

@Wendy_Kroy:

I agree. I used to be obsessive about TwoP a few years back, especially when they had such amazing recappers like Stee and Miss Alli. In their FAQ's from way back when, they mentioned why they don't recap funny shows, noting that pointing out the funny in funny, just wasn't. . .well, funny.
But ever since they retooled the site, they've recapped shows like The Office, My Name is Earl and How I Met Your Mother--all comedies, and all (to a certain extent) intended to be funny. So it's that, plus with the volume of shows they've now decided to cover, the editorial quality has suffered.

@WifeMotherCrip: Me too.

As long as the Dude who recapped Studio 60 doesn't leave

@xfool92:
Yeah, they censored my comments too, for no good reason. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as we used to say in grade school (which is about the level of most of their recent recaps.)

The problem with noncompetes from a corporate point of view is, you can only really block them from one medium for a certain period of time. So, no blogs? But they can start forums? Or websites? Or get a tv deal of their own? Or book deal, magazine contract, newspaper column...When it's writing talent and a nose for what the public wants to read, that talent is hard to block. Wherever these guys end up, they will siphon people away from their former overlords, and good for them.

I still miss djb the most... but I gave up on the forums years ago. Between the annoying rules and the endless threads, it was a waste.

I used to like Sars's tomatonation site, too, until she went all test-kitchen ("Susy has curly hair that she can't control. Readers, any ideas?") It was much better when it was Sars knocking sense into the idiots who wrote to her for advice on their pitiful lives.

@Wendy_Kroy: Exactly. Of course, some of the weird choices are obvious -- longtime recapper Pamie is a writer for Samantha Who?, and with the new and unwieldy size of the site they don't mind giving shout-outs to their own -- but they're really just courting traffic and hits now. Some of the best days were when they thought they were going to have to shut down, and the commenters banded together and started buying ad space to keep the place afloat.

I'm sure that was harrowing for Sars, WC, and Glark, but the community atmosphere made it so much more enjoyable. I used to feel pretty recognizable over there, but now you have to be OCD just to get your voice heard over the Greek chorus of reflexively fanatical nutjobs. The problem with inviting two million people to a party is that two million people will show up.

I discovered MBTV during my "Buffy" Season 2 obsessiveness. I used to be a recapper for the "Survivor Sucks" web site back when it was Richard winning and Jeri getting all up in everyone's face.

ITA that MBTV is not the same with so many shows, and so many posters. It is (a) a victim of its own success, and (b) an example of what happens when Old Media wants to get "hip".

Does anyone think mediabistro is the same?

If you take something small and neat and try to blow it up, it looks like the same ugly McMansion everyone else has.

People think you can take something small and beloved and make it big and not lose anything in translation. And it rarely works.

Yeah, it's what happens on the 'net. I've been there since MBTV days and totally fell in love with the site over The Amazing Race, (which they still recap) and ER and CSI recaps (which they don't anymore).

I'm still on a bunch of forums, but I haven't posted to AI in years (Shack was a wonderful recapper), and frankly I'm glad a lot of the recappers have gone on to their own success (Heathen and Jessica, djb, Pamie, and for that matter, Miss Alli, who now lives here fulltime and is a writer/editor)

I trained myself to keep within the FAQ rules, and only ever got warned once on Fametraacker. I must restrain myself, however, after I post on the Datalounge.

Oh, and I was also on Deadspin very early, but don't hang out there much because even satirical dick jokes/fag jokes wear thin after awhile.

I heard that Linda Holmes (Miss Alli) will be taking over as TWoP overlord. If that's the case, then I'm really done with that site, because she's kind of a cuntbag.

@PimpMyCouch: Tardy, but HAH!

You know all, this is the best commentary I've read in months! It's like TwoP without all the warnings.

@Colonel Mustard: This is spot on. Funny that I was just mentioning here the other day the TWoP board for the first Rock Star show, and what a great time that was. TWoP used to be a must-read for me, when it was how the Colonel describes. After the buy-out, I started going less and less, and now I just never go there anymore. It feels like a shame, but I can definitely understand why the 3 would leave.

@Smackdown: God, me too. I would often crack up just reading the titles of the forums. And to this day I mourn the fact that I didn't memorize every post to the fake cussing/censorship board.

@dinergirl: Oh God, please no. She's like everything I hate about TWoP rolled into one, horrible bitchy preten... oh I'm creating a syllogism here aren't I.

I read TWoP still, mostly for smaller shows like Pushing Daisies and Ugly Betty (which I suppose are "smaller" in the sense that their viewership amongst TWoP visitors is not high). And the Heroes discussion is some of the only smart discussion on the subject I've seen on the internet. But posting about shows like Project Runway has become genuinely painful.

@St. Francis: Did you really just whine about getting a free $150+ iPod in exchange for snarky pop culture writing you did totally on spec? Nobody likes to be kept at arm's length and (debatably) misled for a year, but you've got some serious grudge issues . . .

As far as whether Bravo was buying the "content" (i.e., the recaps) or the "talent," I'd say they were buying neither. They were buying the community, and the reliable and frequent page views that community would provide. They needed the talent to create the community in the first place, and keep them reassured through the transition, but they probably think it can chug along just fine without the founders now that it's got sufficient mass of its own. There's no way the three of them were doing significant quantities of writing or moderation on the site any more anyway.

@SeeingI: I too loved Jacob's "Dr Who" recaps, and would read them over and over. He's also written some of the all-time great "Mondo Extras" (if that's what they still call them), some Dr Phil specials, an awful miniseries of "A Wrinkle in Time" and my favorite, an ITV movie starring Chris Eccleston about the second coming in which Christ comes back to earth in Manchester. I think it's called "The Second Coming."
It's available on Netflix, but almost not worth watching without that genius recap.

Miss Alli is taking over? And to think, she started with Dawson's Creek fanfiction.

And also, MissAlli is a sanctimonious douche.

Given the timing, I would say the trio had a deal to stay for one year. Not surprising since they have hated their membershp for oh, about six years now.

The leaving is never as abrupt as it seems. Insiders knew about the leaving for weeks. Don't be surprised to hear of more leaving as well, including writers and mods.

I know some current and former recappers and this is what I've been told.

Re the weecaps: They are sucky and the recappers hate doing them. They apparantly take way too long for what they are paid and the turnaround is something ridiculous, like by 7 AM for shows that air the night before. More than