Digital Spy (digitalspy.co.uk)

Member Name: Lichfield1979

Product:	digitalspy.co.uk
Date:	16/09/08 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Attracts a lot of traffic

Disadvantages: Can be superficial

Digital Spy is the UK's fourth largest online entertainment news outlet and was bought earlier this year (2008) by the publisher Hachette. Upwards of three million people have visited the website, either to read articles or to participate in its extensive discussion forums.

The first incarnation launched with a different name in early 1999 as a gossip site concerned with Sky's digital platform. It gradually expanded its range of technological coverage in Spring 2000 and took the first step towards re-branding itself as Digital Spy with the launch its message boards. At this stage it was still a loose affiliation of sites with different streams of interest, but coverage began to expand into reporting more on program content rather than mainly hardware, especially soaps and reality television, and the popularity of Big Brother in particular has been a boon to the site over the years, as it provides fairly comprehensive reporting and a fast moving opportunity for fans to express opinions in an online community with a reasonably high standard of poster at the top end of the spectrum. A much more comprehensive media industry presence was consolidated in spring 2001 with attention also given to British and US television, and this was more or less the birth of the website as it is known today, although there have been substantial redesigns over the last seven years. At peak traffic the site can now get four million page views in a day from as many as 180,000 discrete users.

The look of the homepage at present is a white backdrop with blue and purple headers and lots of entertainment photographs of celebrities alongside text links to gossip stories. Its main sections below the headline banners are showbiz, television, media, soaps, music, cult, reality, movies, gaming, and US TV. It has dedicated sections of reporting on shows such as X-Factor and Big Brother as well as the major soaps. The media section has broadcasting industry news and digital platform news. The site also reviews electronic consumer goods such as televisions, phones, set-top boxes and DVD players and there's a price compare section too.

The forums are broadly divided into media, entertainment, technology and general. Within these, sub-forums are provided for all of the areas the site reports on, as well as space to talk about politics, books, sports, food and drink, or just general discussion. The boards are strictly moderated but conversation is welcome on pretty much any aspect of the subject at hand and there's probably not a better large-scale UK destination for threads about current programs or technological issues relating to broadcasting, and there's coverage of broadband and computers too. Obviously elsewhere you'll find much more specialised communities on any given subject, but in terms of numbers and the likelihood that somebody else will have something to say about what you're interested in, this is probably your best bet. I personally prefer the American site Television Without Pity for discussing TV programs and Aint It Cool News for films and The Straight Dope for anything vaguely intelligent, but Digital Spy is certainly a useful regional ghetto and there are people there who without doubt know the UK broadcasting industry landscape and a lot else besides. A lot of the off topic threads can be reasonably informative to browse at times, though personally I rarely wander in. I do sometimes wonder if it's the type of message board that appears to be perpetually going downhill yet somehow never actually does, a bit like an M.C. Escher picture. The age range of user seems pretty all-inclusive as befits such a big site, so the content of posts is variable.

The quality of the entertainment news stories is basically tabloid gossip or planted press releases but if you enjoy reading that type of thing it will keep you "informed" and amused. Television has changed a lot in recent years in this country and Digital Spy also provides useful details of ongoing industry developments, although the serious stuff tends to be more hidden away in the background these days. The Guardian is probably better at covering that type of media knowledge in depth, but the fact this website originally had its feet in the technological camp means it always remains relevant and doesn't entirely descend into a TMZ clone.

Summary: Decent UK based media website