And This Is Why Corporations Don't Buy Blogs
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?