MSNBC silently cancels 'The Site'

I always suspected that I was the only one who watched the show and thisweek my fears were verified when MSNBC cancelled "The Site," its computertelevision program. Princess Diana's untimely death caused MSNBC to preemptthe show for two full weeks so it could offer around-the-clock coverage ofthe accident. Perhaps it was telling, but The Site was the only show onMSNBC that couldn't easily be retooled for "all-Diana" scheduling that thecompany wanted. Apparently, the Diana incident caused a nice spike in theratings for MSNBC and it still hasn't gone back down. MSNBC saw the writingon the wall and switched to an all-news format, leaving The Site out ofthe picture.

Unlike garbage such as "C-Net Central" its half dozen spin-offs, The Sitewas good television. I'll miss Soledad O'Brien (who I met last year at FallComdex) and "Dev Null," a nicely animated bit of real-time computer technology. Fans of The Site may be interested to know that most of the show's existing employees (except for O'Brien, who is employed by NBC) will be moving over to a new Ziff-Davis computer show called "ZDTV: Your Computer Channel." Hopefully, this show will not be as pathetic as the C-Net clones.

In an odd bit of electronic journalism, the online version of The Site is covering its own demise