March 16, 2024

Why should we trust the purchaser of TikTok to keep it going? Remember when NBC bought and then killed Television Without Pity?

Here's the Wikipedia page for Television Without Pity, in case you don't remember that wonderful website.

Here's my post from 2014:

Shame on NBCUniversal! It's shutting down Television Without Pity and even making all its old content unavailable to the public.

Incredible! I've been reading Television Without Pity since... I think as long as there's been the web. Since long before I started blogging (in 2004). Before I even owned a laptop, before there was WiFi, I used to print out pages of TWoP recaps to have something with me to read when I went out walking and stopped in a cafĂ©. And don't tell me that sentence makes it look like I read while walking. I did read while walking in those days before iPods and digital audiobooks. I read Television Without Pity! What was the point of watching a show like, say, "American Idol" if you weren't going to laugh at it reading Television Without Pity?... 
Why is NBC destroying this internet treasure?
The sassy TWoP TV review and recap site — its motto is “Spare the snark, spoil the networks” — was purchased by NBCU’s Bravo cable unit in 2007. Both were founded in the Web 1.0 era.
I guess the network decided it wanted to spoil itself. It wants to be spoiled. Or it already was spoiled and not even snark could save it. Damn them! 
The closing impacts 64 employees at the women-focused DailyCandy and three at TWoP....
It only took 3 employees to run TWoP?! You can't string along 3 employees? (As for DailyCandy, sorry, I don't follow it...).
The reason for the closing down was pretty basic: Despite creating laudable sites, there was still not enough traffic and, therefore, a difficulty monetizing the properties, especially in the wake of increased competition since the pair were first founded.
You bought it, it was what it was, so perfectly what it was that you couldn't change it, so you killed it, you fuckers. Great value had been created, you cast your greedy eyes upon it, you thought you could leverage that value, and all you did was destroy it.

Why did NBC buy it, to ruin it? Is it like the Koch Brothers buying the NYT, keeping it going for 7 years, then liquidating the whole operation? Except NBC — and Universal, it's apparently one atrocious entity — is a media operation, reaching out to us, wanting our eyes, ears, and minds. NBCUniversal needs our love or at least our tolerance. I absolutely hate them for this....

Here's the discussion at Throwing Things, where I learned the news. The general opinion seems to be that NBC is only closing what it had already ruined, and "classic Television Without Pity" was already dead....
ADDED: One of the companies that might buy TikTok is Meta. Here's a "List of mergers and acquisitions by Meta Platforms" (Wikipedia). There are 100 entities on that list.
Most of Meta's acquisitions have primarily been "talent acquisitions" and acquired products are often shut-down.... Meta (as Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg... stated in 2010 that "We have not once bought a company for the company. We buy companies to get excellent people... In order to have a really entrepreneurial culture one of the key things is to make sure we're recruiting the best people. One of the ways to do this is to focus on acquiring great companies with great founders."... 

Another company that might buy TikTok is Alphabet (Google). Here's a "List of mergers and acquisitions by Alphabet." There are 257 entities on that list.

And here's the list for Apple, another possibility — 128 names.

How many companies will be fed to these big 3 in forced sales under the new TikTok-inspired legislation?

43 comments:

Leland said...

Deadspin: “Althouse, that was us, just one week ago”
Althouse: “who are you?”

rehajm said...

I remember when NBC bought Megyn Kelly and tried to kill her. She is still kicking and cost NBC a pant load- the disparagement clause must have really hurt…

tim maguire said...

Who cares if the purchaser of TikTok keeps it going? There are plenty of social media sites, with a new major choice coming along every couple years. None are indispensable.

Ice Nine said...

>Why should we trust the purchaser of TikTok to keep it going?<

Because, as one would assume, it will continue to generate $10billion in revenue (for them) each year.

EAB said...

Oh how I loved TWoP. My favorite was “24” recaps. That show was so over-the-top, it was perfect for TWoP.

narciso said...

TWOP was entertaining, specially their 24 threads, deadspin wasn't, frankly much of NBC Universals content either,

Whiskeybum said...

Althouse in 2014: "...so you killed it, you fuckers." and "I absolutely hate them for this...."

Wow - Ann was really feisty 10 years ago. This should not surprise me since I've been following this blog since 2005, but I'm sure that I never read this post back in 2014. It really got her ire up.

I concur with the sentiment in today's post's title. I'm quite concerned with the implications of Chinese Tik-Toc manipulative spyware, however, the 'solution' of selling it to someone else is not without potential problems, depending on who the buyer is and how they intent to 'use' it.

Aggie said...

Taibbi and Greenwald seem to be in the minority group of journalists that see the danger of empowering a presidential administration with the power & authority to censor at the platform level. They've been doing it to individual voices for over half a decade now: Elimination of the inconvenience of dissent......and it seems likely that the Senate will pass the bill with little arguing, then onward to the eager pen of the Non compos mentis-in-Chief.

Wince said...

A decade of Progress?

Television Without Pity has been replaced by Adulthood Without Puberty.

Original Mike said...

Maybe because TikTok makes a large bucket of money the size of a humongous bucket of money? I'm guessing Television Without Pity was not remotely in the same league.

Narr said...

"Remember when NBC bought and then killed TWP?"

No. I didn't get here until after 2014, so I even missed your complaint.

Also, I envy your ability to read while walking. Can you read in a moving car? Both make me nauseous.

Duke Dan said...

The Survivor recaps on TWoP were better than the show itself.

Ann Althouse said...

"It really got her ire up."

If there's one thing about which I have a special sensitivity, it is the destruction of the hard, good work of someone else.

Ann Althouse said...

"If there's one thing about which I have a special sensitivity, it is the destruction of the hard, good work of someone else."

If you look at my posts, you'll see I choose material in this category quite often, such as the post yesterday about the protest interrupting the performance of an Ibsen play. A lot of this stuff is collected with my tag "destruction of art."

Ann Althouse said...

"Who cares if the purchaser of TikTok keeps it going? There are plenty of social media sites, with a new major choice coming along every couple years. None are indispensable."

Yeah, you know the old phrase, "The Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable Men." So who cares if anybody dies?

Ann Althouse said...

"Taibbi and Greenwald seem to be in the minority group of journalists that see the danger of empowering a presidential administration with the power & authority to censor at the platform level."

Yes, I've seen that and am meaning to blog it. There's an immense problem of empowering the President to decide what it means to be "controlled" by a foreign country and then to force its sale.

Gunner said...

TWoP was alright. I remember getting banned from the Daily Show thread for not applauding the leftist hypocrisy and deceptive editing on most episodes.

Ann Althouse said...

"Maybe because TikTok makes a large bucket of money the size of a humongous bucket of money?"

But Meta has its own TikTok-like product, and it wants the money to flow there. TikTok is the competition. Meta doesn't care about the millions of TikTokers who make *their own* money through the app.

Ann Althouse said...

There's a reason for antitrust law.

Quaestor said...

"I remember when NBC bought Megyn Kelly and tried to kill her."

What a silly thing to do with a purchase. That's like buying and destroying the Mona Lisa to increase the value of your Botticellis. If Quaestor bought Megyn Kelly and she failed to please by continuing to be the same prior-to-purchase Megyn Kelly, he'd find her more agreeable employment. Imagine the hoochie-coochie dance possibilities...

Original Mike said...

"But Meta has its own TikTok-like product, and it wants the money to flow there. TikTok is the competition. Meta doesn't care about the millions of TikTokers who make *their own* money through the app."

Another cohort screwed by Zuckerberg. Works for me.

Daniel THomas said...

TV Guide bought Jump the Shark around 20 years ago. What did TVG do? They killed the original way JTS was and turned instead into another gossip website.

Original Mike said...

"But Meta has its own TikTok-like product, and it wants the money to flow there. TikTok is the competition. Meta doesn't care about the millions of TikTokers who make *their own* money through the app."

The smarter business decision, in the hypothetical that Meta now owns TikTok, would appear to be to run with TikTok and let their own product die. But then, these Masters of the Universe never seem capable of the smart business decision.

RCOCEAN II said...

We're supposed to have laws against Monopolies, but of course our Pig congressmen are bribed and allow Big tech and Big Media to do what they like.

And the judiciary are no better.

TWOP was bought to be destroyed. Its happened to other websites. TickTock will be forced to sell, so every major social media platform will be censored and gatekeeped by the same group that does it at Apple, Facebook, and Google. Elon Musk was brought to heel by the same crowd.

We will have conformity, social manipulation, and one big censor in order to stop Chinese censorship and manipulation. LOL!

boatbuilder said...

Sort of like how Fox bought Tucker Carlson and then shut him down, when he was the most popular news show on cable TV.

boatbuilder said...

Aggie--Taibbi and Greenwald are absolutely correct in their concern.

Aggie said...

Can the Federal Government be sued for anti-trust violations?

Rich said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Smith said...

What moron would buy it and shut down an estimated $14B annual revenue?

Darkisland said...

There's an immense problem of empowering the President to decide what it means to be "controlled" by a foreign country and then to force its sale.

I should probably go look at the bill but my understanding is that it doesn't require "control" merely "influence" to trigger the censorship or sale.

I also don't think it requires a foreign country, either. Merely someone the fascists don't like.

If trump loyalist mnuchin gets a group of Americans together to buy tiktok, that might be enough for Brandon & Co.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

It might also be used against truthsocial.com depending on who the new owner turns out to be.

John Henry

BarrySanders20 said...

I regularly read Althouse, Greenwald and Taibbi, in that order. And then some others.

Mikey NTH said...

Putting up a short form video hosting site shouldn't be technically difficult. It's the "natural public utility" effect that keeps it from happening.

Rich said...

The WSJ reports that the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court approves on over 99.9% of all warrant requests, and has virtually no transparency; hearings and records are not disclosed to the public. Apple and Reddit have notably removed their warrant canaries, and Discord openly complies with government requests for user data. Even Telegram, famed for privacy, has disclosed user data to German authorities. Meta sells data about EU users to the US; and data about anyone to anyone else. Cambridge Analytica is still around.

Are politicans actually concerned about user data? I don't think so, or they'd be casting a much broader net to protect people from all companies, not just one scapegoat.

JK Brown said...

Because the purpose of the Tik Tok divestment is to get the data collection into the hands of US interests loyal to the US security apparatus where it can be used more effectively against American citizens by the CIA and FBI and other lanyard class functionaries.

Aggie said...

@Joe Smith said (13:35)... What moron would buy it and shut down an estimated $14B annual revenue?

You might remember a social media app that was getting very very popular back in 2020, called 'Parlor'. It was getting too popular, with the wrong people, people that could be called, 'non-Democrat'. The app was removed from the app stores at Apple, Amazon, and Google.

Do you remember why? It wasn't because of cash flow or financial viability; it was topping the charts as America's favorite, most-popular app. Seriously: Can you remember why?

tim maguire said...

Blogger Ann Althouse said...Yeah, you know the old phrase, "The Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable Men." So who cares if anybody dies?

Do I really need to point out what’s wrong with your comparison?

Original Mike said...

"(ie: fake news operation along the lines of what Russia’s Internet Research Agency carried out through Facebook in the 2016 election)"

Those Hillary arm-wrestling Satan ads were really insidious

Rich said...

A serious bill would restrict the sale and collection of data collected by any social media app, regardless of who owns it.

Here is what a serious bill would look like. It would impose privacy regulations on the sale to third-parties of any data collected by any social media app, regardless of who owns it. Right now, China and Russia, and any other adversary, can buy all the personal data they like from owners like X, Instagram and YouTube. They can also manipulate those sites for their own causes. If China wants to mess with American voters heads (ie: fake news operation along the lines of what Russia’s Internet Research Agency carried out through Facebook in the 2016 election) digital America is an open door. Being forced to divest TikTok would not change that.

Rich said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Drago said...

LLR-democratical Rich: "(ie: fake news operation along the lines of what Russia’s Internet Research Agency carried out through Facebook in the 2016 election)"

OMG! This idiot still thinks March of 2017 talking points are still viable!

All the LOL's!

gadfly said...

Ann Althouse said...
"Taibbi and Greenwald seem to be in the minority group of journalists that see the danger of empowering a presidential administration with the power & authority to censor at the platform level."

Yes, I've seen that and am meaning to blog it. There's an immense problem of empowering the President to decide what it means to be "controlled" by a foreign country and then to force its sale.


For starters, the opinions of Taibbi and Greenwald are usually on the wrong side of the fence, but the sentence, "There's an immense problem of empowering the President to decide what it means to be 'controlled' by a foreign country and then to force its sale" is nonsensical.

If TikTok is being used as a propaganda tool to bend young people's minds and act as a vehicle to undermine our government, then forcing a sale makes no sense - we must eliminate the threat. While our billionaires are driven by bargains and the rich shall dominate, I guess, we can expect that China will also take a hit in the pocketbook in a real liquidation - which is easier, faster and immediate.

Rusty said...

Gadfly said,
"If TikTok is being used as a propaganda tool to bend young people's minds and act as a vehicle to undermine our government, then forcing a sale makes no sense - we must eliminate the threat."
Because your friends are making money from it. It's called graft.