Gawker: Television Without Pity

Commenters Comment on Commenting, Actually Get Somewhere

Richard — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:02:10 EDT

Last week Chairman Denton wrote about Television Without Pity, the "unfettered" TV review site that just lost its three founding members, a lonely one year after Bravo acquired it. Fittingly, our commenters (many revealing themselves to be multiple-site commenting addicts) had many well formed opinions about the heavily commenter-focused TWoP, opining at length about why the three favorites left and what happened, in a general sense, to the once mighty site. Essentially the same conclusion was reached by all, that TWoP fell to that oldest of internet stories: small, cult-ish site ("beautifully self-contained", commenter Colonel Mustard mused) gets noticed and keeps getting bigger until it collapses under its own weight, especially when it goes corporate. There are too many recaps now! Who cares about Samantha Who?? (No one, I hope.) There are soo many damned commenting rules, you keened.

Many of your prognoses were grim, based on the chief talent leaving, but commenter Crunchbird thoughtfully, if a bit cynically, suggested that the site was purchased for a more forward-thinking, pinko commie reason:

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.

Hmm. Interesting. The inmates running the asylum? Why would anyone ever let anyone do that?

And This Is Why Corporations Don't Buy Blogs

Nick Denton — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:51:25 EST

So how did NBC's Bravo lose not one but all three founders of the unfettered TV review site, Television Without Pity, it bought a year ago? The cable network disclosed this week, in a blog post, that Sars (Sarah D. Bunting), Wing Chun (Tara Ariano), and Glark (David T. Cole) were all leaving the 10-year-old site "to pursue dreams and ambitions that will take them beyond TWoP."

To be sure, the timing of the move suggests that the founders' payday was in part conditional on them remaining for a year after NBC's acquisition; they've all left now the lock-in has expired. Nevertheless, one has to assume that the suits made some effort to retain at least one of the founders, in a consultative role at least, to maintain some continuity. That the team has left so abruptly suggests a fallout. When TWoP was taken over, readers doubted the buyers' promise that the site would still be allowed to criticize NBC shows. But I'm guessing the reason for the breakup is more prosaic: that the founders didn't like Bravo's pressure to broaden the site. Backstory, anybody?

Related: Soon after Bravo bought Television Without Pity, the founders had to deal with a writer revolt. [Radar]

To-Do List

Gawker — Tue, 08 Apr 2003 15:38:57 EDT

1. Hear architect Raphael Vinoly at NYU.
2. Panelists from Time, Entertainment Weekly, the Times, and Television Without Pity discuss television criticism at the Museum of Television and Radio.
3. Catch Cat Power at Warsaw.