★★★★★ 0/5

TV Central blog closes up shop

Updated: Perth-based television blog TVCentral has announced its closure as the site and webhost both call off legal proceedings.

13
Leave a comment

Perth-based television blog TVCentral has announced its closure after having all its data erased last week.

Editor Aaron Ryan said, “I have a second job outside TVCentral and aside from sleeping and eating, I have spent every ounce of free time on the site and quite frankly it was a little unhealthy.”

The site previously known as TV Auscast lost its archival data last week, but a blame game ensued between Ryan and its former webhost, much of which was played out in online forums.

VentraIP claimed, “As always, every story has two sides, and the unfortunate situation in this story is that it is simply a case of a client not taking appropriate action when prompted.”

Ryan thanked readers for their support, saying, “I have had great support from the networks and I thank them wholeheartedly and to my fans and the people that regularly email me I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Ryan also indicates he has ceased legal action against webhost VentraIP.

UPDATED: VentraIP has issued a second Press Release regarding statements made by TV Central.

Mr. Cheyne Jonstone, Chief Executive Officer of VentraIP Group, said in part:
“Last week we responded to Mr. Ryan’s baseless and to date unproven allegations in an effort to protect our reputation as a trusted provider of web hosting services.

“After three days we made the decision to cease posting about the matter in public as all the allegations that needed to be addressed were answered, however, during and after this time, Mr. Ryan continued to post in public and email us even after being informed that we would not discuss the matter any further.”

VentraIP details further communications with TV Central including its consideration of damages action in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

“However, we are pleased to see that Mr. Ryan has finally accepted responsibility for his actions, and that he no longer intends to pursue VentraIP in any legal action. As a result we have decided not to proceed with our application for injunctive relief and damages as we would like to draw a close to this matter as I believe it is the best thing for both parties.”

Further reading at Sydney Morning Herald.

13 Responses

  1. @Dominick – thanks for the explanation, all I meant was it is much more complicated than the Web Host stuffing up and deleting the site. That said if you’re livelihood is a website you should make sure you have a valid backup or have taken appropriate steps to make sure they are safe.

    Anyone know how much data are we talking about here and how long would it take to do an online backup?

  2. @Vinny. I have read all of what Aaron has had to say and to be honest airing everything that he has in public forums will do him no favors when it comes to trying to obtain his ‘dream job’.

    His first problem was that he did not back up his own site. Secondly, the client ignored key communication given to him by the provider. If he followed all of what was required, rather than skip the ‘key and all important’ content, none of this would have happened.

    Both costly mistakes which he will no doubt regret for a long long time.

    Also, as he only owned the website for about four months surely the previous owner had a ‘back up’ file?

  3. Not being experienced in such matters, but it is my assumption that any ISP would always advise making backups of all materials and cannot take responsibility for the permanence of any data, end of story. I know that’s an extremely tight nutshell and oversimplifying but that’s the core of it, right?

  4. @Kathy – Of course I have read the recent press release. On the Whirlpool forum Aaron says

    The actual cause of the data loss was the cancellation of the account. VentraIP instructed me via email to close that account.

  5. Craig-

    No, it sounds like the site hit the limit (5gb) to be a part of the automatic back-up process (unless you pay to continue), and was advised that back-ups are now the owners responsibility. Which was ignored.

    Then, the site went through issues because it was hosted on a cheap shared web-host (rather than a VPS which can handle large traffic, etc) and the owner was advised to migrate to the appropriate hosting.

    When it came to do so, all relevant communication to achieve this was ignored by the owner thus the host could go no further.

    Then, the owner contact a completely separate accounts department, and questioned the two hosting services they had. The accounts department (which knows nothing of what went on) appropriately gave instructions on how to cancel the other service if it is no longer needed.

    Which the owner did. With no back-up of the information contained, no migration attempted, and no thought that “hey; my data is in here and I haven’t migrated or backed-up yet. Oh well! *delete*”.

    That’s what it sounds like.

  6. Thanks for the PDF link Andrew, so is it me or does there sound like there is more to the story than we were lead to believe. Maybe Ventra IP pulled the plug on his site before any suitable backups were made? A harsh lesson learnt.

  7. Spot on ticky. I find it amazing that he did not have a backup…

    Vinny did you read VentraIP’s press release? It’s comments like yours that are hurting the provider. The client in most part, was the problem, not the provider.

  8. Spot on ticky. I find it amazing that he did not have a backup…

    Vinny did you read VentraIP’s press release? It’s comments like yours that are hurting the provider. The client was the problem, not the provider.

Leave a Reply