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Television Without Pity website to close

It was a pioneering "recap" website but now the landscape has changed, Television Without Pity is shutting up shop.

2014-04-03_2238Pioneering US recap website Television Without Pity is closing tomorrow (US time), after 12 years of blogging synopses with its unique, snarky style.

A brief statement on the site simply says “TWOP will cease operations on April 4, but our forums will remain open till May 31. Thank you for your support over the years.”

The site is owned by NBCUniversal, which is also closing fashion and entertainment site DailyCandy.

A statement from the company said: “DailyCandy and Television Without Pity were groundbreaking businesses when they launched more than a decade ago, and the teams there have done great work creating unique voices in the digital space. However, as NBCUniversal continues to evolve, the decision was made that DailyCandy and Television Without Pity are no longer viable businesses for our company. Effective April 4th, DailyCandy and Television Without Pity will cease all operations.”

Television Without Pity was founded in 2002 by Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting. With its lengthy, opinionated recaps of favourite shows, its motto is “spare the snark, spoil the networks” -although I vaguely recall the brilliant “We watch Television So You Don’t Have To.”

So colourful were the recaps, it was sometimes hard to determine if its contributors loved or hated the shows -indeed, it showed you could do both at the same time.  Many TV fans didn’t feel as if they’ve really watched a show until they’ve read about it afterwards and weighed in with an opinion.

But much has changed since 2002. PVRs are now far more prevalent, meaning the service it offered of getting up to speed on something you had missed was now being superceded by our ability to better record. Catch-up sites are also the norm, driving fans to watch an episode rather than read about it.

And recaps themselves are now everywhere in mainstream media. Look to Fairfax and you will see My Kitchen Rules recapped every day, because it helps drive online traffic. If they were really interested in telling you about a show you had missed, wouldn’t they be recapping The Biggest Loser?

Granted, recaps have a role, but frankly I think a Review is more preferable. Better to tell you about something in advance, to drive you to the show itself.

After the TWoP announcement there was an outcry from fans which has led to NBCU agreeing to keep the archives online after shutdown. But moderated forums will end at May 31st.

TWoP moderator Pembleton has written, “As you probably saw in the media or via our announcement, TWoP is shutting down. The recaps will be ending as of…now. The forums will stay open until May 31.This is the thread to ask questions. Be aware that, for most of us, we are finding out about this as you are, so it may take a bit to get you the information you need. And also, there will be ZERO TOLERANCE of badmouthing or denigrating our parent companies. It was a business decision. This site lasted much, much longer than many others of its ilk. We are proud of our quality and longevity, and we are sad that it is ending, but we are keeping the forums open, not for business reasons, but for our users to finish conversations or find other places to have them. We are not keeping them open so that anyone can talk shit. I hope that’s clear So ask away.”

Source: Wall Street Journal, Re/Code

7 Responses

  1. I think TWOP morphed from MightBigTV, which I read years ago. Loved TWOP'[s recaps of Buffy, West Wing and Alias, especially when we had to wait years to see the shows. I haven’t read their recaps for ages now, there are other means of catching up. I am glad that their archives are staying online though.

  2. Oh that’s sad. I used to always read the recaps for Gilmore Girls, The Amazing Race and a few other shows I can’t remember at the moment. I loved it, at the time. But times have changed, their forums were always strict on spelling and grammar.

    Still sad to see it go, it brought back good memories.

  3. What use is a recap these days when most network shows are formulaic, sloppily written and axed within two years?

    Especially when the network can sell downloads or DVDs of the show to people who want to remember what happened in an episode.

    So instead of detailed commentary and analysis we get 140 character comments and Netflix etc.

  4. TWoP was great when it was moderated by volunteers. Once it was bought by Bravo it became close to a dictatorship. BTW Glark was also one of the cornerstones of TWoP.

    Long live the Fivehead. Rest in piece Tubey.

  5. TWOP and TVSquad were my go to recap sites back in the day. AVClub has seemed to be my replacement

    The forums at TWOP were great, and covered a great number of current and past TV Shows. Shame it had to end.

  6. I followed quite a few shows there at one stage when viewing them wasn’t going to be possible. The recaps of shows like The Amazing Race, Studio 60, etc were almost better than the original!

    At one stage it even even became part of the shows, Aaron Sorkin had such a bad experience on there during the early days of the West Wing he wrote a b plot in one episode that took aim at them!

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