The grand experiment appears to be over. At least 12 people at TBD.com have been handed pink slips, and the DC news site will be downsized to cover arts and entertainment, according to a report by Washington City Paper. “They’re laying off half the staff,” says a TBD staffer, who asked to be anonymous. “Pretty much all the news people.”
A Washington Post story confirms 12 of 36 staffers are out. Others will be reassigned to work on WJLA.com.
Today’s announcement comes just two weeks after news that WJLA-TV’s Bill Lord was taking over management of the site. “We need to be more cost-conscious, and we need more page views,” Lord told Poynter in an interview. “I don’t think there were specific goals [at the time of TBD’s launch], but there will be now.” Lord said WJLA.com, which was redirected to TBD.com, will be relaunched as a news site.
TBD.com was created by Allbritton, the parent company to WJLA-TV, as a standalone news site with “a three to five year runway,” said former GM Jim Brady, who recently left the company over disagreements on its direction. TBD.com launched 6 months ago.
“I quit my job & moved 500+ miles for an experiment I was pretty excited about. Now I’m looking for work again. Oh journalism, you slay me,” says now former TBD employee Mandy Jenkins in a tweet. “Soooo…who’s hiring these days? I hear wonderful things about the job market,” tweets Daniel Victor.
Twitter has been abuzz with the news, and many in the journalism business point a harsh finger at Allbritton, and in a way, TV news as a whole. “Content is expensive. What TBD needed was a Web page with a helicopter, call letters and a pic of the Home Town Team. Right?” tweeted Steve Yelvington. Added Jay Rosen, “Not only did TV guys win but felt it necessary to humiliate TBD.com & make sure nothing like it rises again.”
When it was launched, TBD.com was a clean break from WJLA-TV, both in brand and content. That was by design to allow the team — the biggest online staff in local TV by far — to pursue new digital opportunities without the encumbrances of the legacy brand. But even under the most optimistic scenarios, TBD’s revenue would not support that staff size for the immediate future, which requires a very patient parent company. That patience becomes frayed when web and TV teams are pointing in different directions, despite having the same mission to cover the news and sell advertising around it. Two news organizations, two sales organizations, two brands, one company, one market.
I never expected, however, that the experiment would come to an end so quickly. Local TV is often impatient and reluctant to invest in online news. Today’s announcement reinforces that image, and by extension, sends the message to talented online journalists that local TV can be one of the most difficult places to launch a new idea. And that’s unfortunate.