TBD built into its business model collaboration with area blogs and other websites. Before its launch, it created a blog network of over 100 local sites with which it shared both content and, significantly, ad revenue. Four TBD staffers were responsible for monitoring coverage in the region, with a particular focus on those existing local sites. And those sites, in turn, were invited to participate in a revenue ad share. (TBD’s sales team — which was also WJLA’s sales team — sold the ads and took 65 percent of the gross.) Ultimately, the TBD Community Network would grow to include more than 200 blogs, with about 50 of them participating in the advertising deal.

TBD’s link-sharing ethos was part of its business strategy, as well. The hallmarks of its news coverage were a heavy emphasis on aggregation and linking, as well as a focus on real-time updates when it came to breaking news. Probably the most notable story TBD covered as a general-interest news site came in early September 2010, when a gunman took and held three hostages at the Discovery Channel building in suburban Washington. TBD dominated the story’s coverage, especially at the outset of the standoff, by aggregating tweets from eyewitnesses, keeping a live blog of developments, and integrating its coverage with the TV-based updates of WJLA.

Beyond breaking-news stories, though, the site generally adopted a “news you can use” approach in its coverage, compiling traffic and Metro updates, writing quirky lists of local interest, and generally aggregating information about community events and neighborhood life. “The concept is, to win big, you have to bet big,” Brady told paidContent before TBD’s launch. “To build a business, you have to build an audience. And to build an audience, you have to have enough interesting content features.”

In December 2010, however, Brady resigned from TBD over philosophical differences with Allbritton Communications. It was speculated that the rift was due to publisher Robert Allbritton’s desire to emphasize original content at TBD, while Brady wanted to focus on aggregation and other more technologically oriented approaches to news coverage.

Later that month, TBD announced it would stop serving ads on member blogs and websites. While “TBD links have boosted the traffic of network members,” Steve Buttry explained in a blog post, “unfortunately, the advertising aspect of the network has not taken off as effectively as the traffic and linking relationship.”

In February 2011, WJLA announced it would take over TBD’s operations, and that the station, under WJLA station manager Bill Lord, would bring back its own website to run alongside TBD’s. (In the realignment, TBD-TV would also revert back to its News Channel 8 branding.)

Though Wemple said at the time that no jobs would be affected by the move, two weeks later, in late February 2011, Allbritton Communications announced it would eliminate the majority of TBD’s jobs, reducing the staff from about two dozen to eight. The previous month, January — five months after its debut — TBD had attracted 1.5 million unique visitors, nearly double its December total of 838,000, and substantially higher than other sites operated by local TV stations.

But monetization was another story. Despite TBD’s traffic and engagement success, Lord explained at the time, there was “a very wide gap” between expenses and revenue.

In May 2011, The Washington Post announced that Wemple would leave TBD to become a media columnist at the paper.