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Pour one out for ol’ TV Squad

The bulk of the freelance writers at AOL's TV Squad were given their walking papers earlier today. I'd say it's the end of an era, but that era already ended years ago.

I got word this morning from an old TV Squadder that the entire freelancing team at TV Squad was given notice that, effective today, they had no place on TV Squad. Unlike how Cinematical was handled, the shitcanned writers were not “encouraged” to continue to write for the site for free. They were told they’d be paid for services rendered, and that today was their last day.

Here’s the note that was sent out:

Thank you very much for your contributions to AOL. As we have discussed on calls and in emails, going forward our editorial direction is to build a great team of full-time editors, writers, and reporters. To that end, we are reducing the scope of AOL’s freelancer program.

Per the terms of your agreement with AOL, this note confirms the end of your engagement for content services effective Wednesday, April 6, 2011. Rest assured, you will be paid for your content and services through this date, disbursed to you per AOL’s regular payment schedule in late May.

We greatly appreciate your contributions and are available to answer any questions you may have. Please email freelancers@teamaol.com with any inquiries.

Apparently their appreciation for past contributions was in the form of being shown the door.

It’s certainly no secret to anyone that CliqueClack was founded with writers from TV Squad a few years ago, when I stepped down as its lead editor. At the time I had no aspirations of starting a new project. I had (and still have) a full-time job I had to put my energy into, and I was content with not having to do another job on the side. After much encouragement from Deb and many TV Squadders to start something new, CliqueClack was born. I’m eternally grateful for being pushed to doing this, as it’s been more satisfying for me than TV Squad ever was.

Actually, “ever” is a strong word. In its early days, TV Squad was a hell of a lot of fun. I dare say many aspects of those early days are the basis of what we do here on CliqueClack today. Lots of opinion and goofy fun, not harping too much on what might or might not hit the AOL front page. We didn’t give a crap if something was SEO-friendly or whether we’d piss someone off with what we said. The point is, we had fun, and for a LOT less pay than the writers were most recently getting — back then we started at around $5/post, most recently I think they were getting $25! Granted, CliqueClack doesn’t have investment dollars to pay our fine writers much, but the more you guys visit our site and help draw visitors our way, better compensation for everyone is a real possibility.

One thing I want to get off my chest: Back when CliqueClack was formed, it was solely for the purpose of allowing the TV Squad freelancers a place to continue to write show reviews for the shows AOL no longer wanted TV Squad to review. The writers wanted to give the readers what they knew they’d be clamoring for, and the plan was to have CliqueClack be that outlet. So, I decided to approach the then-boss of AOL TV with an idea: allow the TV Squadders to post those reviews on CliqueClack, and give us a button on TV Squad so we’d get traffic and can pay the writers ourselves. We would not review shows TV Squad covered — no competition. He’d have none of it, and from what I heard he took CliqueClack as a personal insult. CliqueClack’s purpose was never to compete with TV Squad — we have different voices. AOL had a chance to make themselves out to look pretty damn nice to their freelancers by driving a little traffic their way — traffic to a site that wouldn’t compete with what they were doing — and they turned thumbs down to it. Now, seeing how they’ve once again treated the freelancers there like cattle, it’s no wonder they didn’t want to help.

Anyway, I don’t want to take up a thousand words here to reminisce of the good ol’ days of TV Squad. Those days, for me, are long gone. I never did and do not wish TV Squad ill will, which is why everything I’ve seen happen to the site in the past few years has been sad to me. I’ll pour one out for those who’ve lost their jobs there tonight. It’ll probably be poured down my throat, but it’s with good intentions.

Photo Credit: AOL TV Squad

Categories: | Clack | General | News |

22 Responses to “Pour one out for ol’ TV Squad”

April 6, 2011 at 1:19 PM

I remember when TV Squad was good, before the AOL takeover. I can remember waiting for a recap to post so I could find out if other TVSquadders had the same opinion of the episode that I did. LOST live chats were lots of fun, too. AOL doesn’t realize what it is losing.

April 6, 2011 at 1:27 PM

all TV Squad does is rehash reality tv … it is rare to see a real tv show reviewed.

April 6, 2011 at 1:53 PM

I only really liked TV Squad when you (Keith) were there doing the BSG write-ups.

April 6, 2011 at 1:55 PM

Clique Clack rules!!! :)

April 9, 2011 at 10:14 PM

I agree! And I obviously have no bias!

April 6, 2011 at 2:53 PM

This is sad news. I agree with Emland that TV Squad was great before AOL took over. Then I unsubscribed to the feed. Thanks for the info, Keith.

April 6, 2011 at 2:58 PM

836 comments over the years at TV Squad. I never was employed over there, but I began friendships that obviously last until this day. Plus, you know, CliqueClack :)

April 6, 2011 at 4:14 PM

How could I forget, yes, credit is due for that! :)

April 6, 2011 at 5:20 PM

I must agree, TVSquad was good before the takeover. I still visit it, about once a day, to see what shows have new episodes. But lately it’s been slacking off on that. If CliqueClack did that, I’d never visit it at all.

April 6, 2011 at 7:03 PM

Jen, if you are looking for what shows have new episodes, you should totally check out the CliqueClack mailing list. No spam. Just one email each day telling you what is new each night.

April 6, 2011 at 11:41 PM

Oooh, thanks for the heads up!

April 15, 2011 at 12:47 AM

Oh snap! that’s the only reason I still visit TVSquad. Thanks for the info.

April 6, 2011 at 5:41 PM

I use to think TV Squad was a great site, but at one point (after they randomly stopped reviewing shows for a month) it just seemed to drop in quality suddenly. Thats actually what led me here. You guys here since then really became such a much more worthwhile, interesting, and fun site to visit. I found myself visiting as much as I went on TV Squad Then TV Squad merged with some other AOL TV property and I just stopped commenting on there all together.

Based on my experience with TV Squad thank God they turned your offer down. This site would just of become troll central along with everything else on AOL.

April 7, 2011 at 11:04 AM

I agree with you..I loved TS and then one day everything stopped..then after a few weeks some reviews showed up.I even wrote the site a few emails saying that they really should put out an explanation of what was going on. Thank goodness someone posted that some of the TS writers were now over here and so I followed to this wonderful site.

April 7, 2011 at 12:12 AM

It wasn’t nicknamed “AOHell” for nothing.

April 7, 2011 at 9:11 AM

Ouch. I only found TVS a few years before the takeover, but followed it religiously and appreciated both the length of the episode reviews and the dialogue between the regular commenters. The sudden excision of the the reviews, followed by their equally-as-sudden regeneration with new writers some months after CC was up and running, always mystified me. In the meantime, I followed some familiar names here to this site, and was glad to find the S/N ratio only increased in the changeover.

I check in on TVS every few weeks, especially when M. R. posts an exclusive, but find everything else on there to be increasingly and impenetrably befuddling as time passes. Now that the scythe has swung wide, I expect the entire enterprise to become utterly pointless. It’s gladdening to see that at least CliqueClack chugs steadily on on the margins of this brouhaha.

April 9, 2011 at 10:16 PM

Don’t worry, CliqueClack is here to stay. Tell your friends!

April 12, 2011 at 1:39 PM

Looks like cinematical is on its way out too. Only two posts in two days. Is there a cliqueclack type site for movie news/commentary?

April 12, 2011 at 1:47 PM

In development: https://cliqueclack.com/flicks/category/general/

Like with CCTV, we won’t regurgitate news, so you’ll have to find that elsewhere. :)

April 12, 2011 at 4:21 PM

Great, I’m excited! Thanks!

April 15, 2011 at 12:56 AM

I, like most, found CC after TVSquad had stopped posting reviews for a few weeks. I’ve only visited TVSquad since then for their daily listings that Bob Sassone put up. Just noticed he hasn’t posted them since the 6th so I did some digging & found out he was fired. I didn’t even find out about all of this stuff until reading about Download Squad getting the axe on Reddit today.

I hope all the writers from TVSquads old days find new jobs. I know I haven’t been on CC in a long time (reddit became my new addiction), but I do pop in from time to time to find out about stuff. Keep up the great work guys!

(sorry if this is all jumbled/random)

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