I'm the creator of TheTVDB and worked as a lead engineer at TV Time from 2018-2024. Ask me anything!
With the shutdown of TV Time, I thought some people might have questions about either product. I have good insight into both with regard to technology/development, history, legal, business decisions, and some financials (mostly on TheTVDB side). I did ask the mods if I could post this, and they graciously approved. I'm hoping maybe it'll stave off some of the repeat posts.
I am working today, so I'll answer when I can. There are a few things I won't be able to answer because of potential legal restrictions or company secrets (existing products). Ok...
I’m the original creator of TheTVDB, which is the metadata source for many apps and sites like TV Time and Plex. TheTVDB was acquired in 2018 by TV Time, which later became Whip Media after an acquisition of Mediamorph. While at Whip Media, I was the lead engineer for TheTVDB, managed the rewrite of TV Time’s website, and lead engineer for their enterprise data analytics platform. I remained at Whip Media through approximately 4 rounds of layoffs from 2022 to 2024 and then left in late 2024 for a more stable position.
Some points of interest:
- TV Time had a team of around 30 working on it at its peak. TheTVDB had a team of 5, plus fractional staff, a few paid offshore moderators, and an awesome group of volunteer moderators. TV Time is down to maybe a couple of fractional resources (a developer, devops) as they wind it down.
- Whip Media made a big play with its acquisition of Mediamorph, including aggressive hiring and taking on a lot of debt. The big play (a predictive "content rights marketplace") didn’t pan out, which factors in heavily to this shutdown of TV Time.
- Whip Media’s CEO while I was there is the former CEO of MySpace and Demand Media. Super wealthy, super smart, and super charismatic. During layoffs, he did his best to help people find other jobs when he could. He lives up the hill from Dr Dre, and we had a few work parties at his house (his pool is AMAZING). He's also friends with Tom Brady, who lived next to him, and who joined one of our work meetings via teleconference to chat with us.
- TheTVDB has averaged around 30 billion hits on its API every month for a decade, and at its peak exceeded 1PB of bandwidth usage. Kodi/XBMC was always the top API user, by far. Plex, Apple, and other commercial users effectively subsidized Kodi's use (which those companies were aware of and supported).
- We had a VERY high level TV executive casually mention that he used TheTVDB/Kodi for his pirated content during a meeting with us. It was hilarious.
- TheTVDB’s past commercial clients included Google, Apple, Plex, and many more. Apple was rad to work with.
- TheTVDB was originally going to be shut down as well. After I told Plex, they stepped up in a huge way to try preventing it from happening. The efforts that Plex and I put in didn't pan out in the way we desired/expected, but Plex deserves a ton of praise for a purely benevolent move to support the community (go sign up for Plex Pass).
- Petitions to keep TV Time running aren’t going to work, unfortunately. I've known about the shutdown for 6 months. This isn't a reactionary decision. There are a lot of smart businesspeople with a lot of financial and analytic information at their disposal that made the decision.
- I don't know what the current status is, but even if TheTVDB is safe for right now, it may not be longer term. There was huge pushback on membership models for TheTVDB a few years ago, and those were intended to support TheTVDB and TV Time. If there hadn't been complaints about that with regard to TheTVDB, a paid model for TV Time might have been more likely. None of us like paying for stuff, but take this as an opportunity to consider your support of existing sites like TheTVDB and systems like Plex.
- I think I could architect a more cost-effective version of TV Time and TheTVDB. I don't have time to build it, but I'm happy to talk through scalability and barriers.
Ok. Ask me whatever you'd like. Happy to try my best to answer them. Just as a note, though... some of you all get aggressive/demanding in your responses. Take a deep breath before you respond. :)
edit: Just as a very important note, I have no official relationship with TheTVDB, TV Time, or Whip Media anymore. Anything I say is entirely my opinion and not guaranteed to be accurate.