The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Mike Sielski loaded up the Howitzer and then unleashed a salvo of journalistic projectiles towards 3601 South Broad Street with the publishing of a column titled NBC Sports Philadelphia is dying, Long live Comcast SportsNet.

You sometimes lose track of how much quality talent the network has axed over the years, but this recent round of unpopular cuts included Derrick Gunn and Gregg Murphy, which seems sacrilegious in a way, since that pair were household names among Eagles and Phillies fans. Also let go were Serena Winters, Paul Hudrick, Enrico Campitelli, Maureen Quilter, and a number of talented individuals who are now forced to find new jobs in the middle of a global pandemic.

As such, the powers that be have faced a week’s worth of shredding, which may or may not be deserved, depending on how high we’d have to climb the Comcast/NBC ladder to find the person(s) responsible for turning a once-great station into a lifeless husk. PennLive.com’s David Jones was among the shredders, while Sielski’s column had me nodding up and down multiple times in agreement.

This passage was particularly saucy:

“There’s a difference between what makes for good television and what makes for good online content. No matter. NBC could lower costs by applying the same programming formula everywhere, even if that formula required the creation of shows that consisted of a couple of fans sitting in front of laptops and reading from their social-media feeds, that touted the fans’ “outsider” status, and that featured all the production value of a closed-circuit infomercial shot in a stoner’s basement in Aurora, Ill.

There are still terrific people and professionals at NBC Sports Philadelphia, friends and colleagues for whom I have the greatest respect. I wish they were in a better situation. I treasured my own connection there. But that network really doesn’t exist anymore. I wish it did. The one that does remains stuck in a sad little place, between what used to be and what might have been.”

That’s pretty savage, and it’s not coming from an irreverent sports blog. That’s from a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist. Mike is 100% right when he notes that “there are still terrific people” working there, and it’s a shame that they find themselves in an increasingly untenable situation.

Here’s more savagery from Jones’ piece:

What remains, rebranded under the decade-long mismanagement of NBC-Universal, is a pathetic shell of amateur bloggers repurposed as talk hosts, simulcast radio shows and paid programming, most notoriously the ancient Larry King hawking bottled tonics and tablets. It’s all like watching a beloved old star athlete, way past his expiration date, traipsing through the motions just to cash a few final paychecks.

Again, pro writer here, not a blogger. His words are harsh, but… accurate it would seem, based on the negative feedback to recent moves in recent years.

The macro-level question is whether the corporate suits deserve the blame, or if local television is simply dead. Does anybody watch the news anymore? Can you name an anchor at CBS 3 besides Ukee Washington? Vai Sikahema is retiring in November as NBC 10’s longest-tenured on-air personality. Legacy media has been going through molecular-level changes for more than a decade now, as the industry collectively tries to understand its role in a digital world. Perhaps this is a combination of the train inevitably headed for a wreck, while the conductor also has no clue how to operate the thing.

We wrote a couple of stories about NBCSP back in 2018 if you’d like to read more, including a deep dive with quotes from people who worked there:

Discord and Unrest: Current and Former Employees Describe Life at NBC Sports Philly

Some Thoughts on Whatever the Hell NBC Sports Philadelphia is Doing