And all claiming 'exclusives' !

It hasn't done them any good though. Posters, and I presume readers, have really dwindled. The soaps front page can have the same threads for 2 or 3 days now. Something that was unheard of not so long ago.

Oh great the pop-up ads that cover the entire screen and direct your phone to the App Store are back.

I've still not forgiven DS for when one of those directed me to a gambling website and charged me £5.

As for articles on the main site, perhaps we could write one:

"1,000 Reasons Why Digital Spy Is Now A Massive Pile of Crap."

I'm sure we wouldn't struggle to come up with 1,000.

The British media are becoming very dumbed down and using Americanisms.

If I see random 'Z's' appearing in words I'm also going to go mental.

Its 'organise' not 'organize'. Urgh.

DS was popular pre-revamp according to their About Us page. In fact hits have declined if that article about the site and its new editor from December 2015 is to be believed.

Young people (who the revamp is presumably trying to attract) were posting on the forums before it so clearly DS had some appeal in that area. It's just they're going after the vacuous kind who live on Twitter and who like gifs, emojis, and not too much text with what text there is peppered with 'witty' asides/author opinion to make it more palatable.

Why follow the crowd and make yourself like every other depressing clickbait site out there? Radio Times haven't. There is still a place for well-written informative articles as evidenced by their online presence. Even on the odd occasion RT do list features and Twitter-based articles they remain well written. A switch to a more informal sensationalist style shouldn't mean that standards should go completely out of the window. Just because you're telling people what 3 people have said on Twitter or you've compiled a list that doesn't tally with popular opinion anyway (I mean Tracy Barlow a better bitch than Janine Butcher?) does not mean you should present it with missing words and typos. Ever heard of proof-reading? Metro are the worst but there's been an increase in errors on DS since they started going down the same road.

More people are writing the DS soap articles now and often you get the impression they are unfamiliar with the soaps. Even one of the dedicated soap reporters, Sophie Dainty, has had some howlers.

I imagine DS are attracting who they want to attract (although there's sites doing a better job of clickbait/throwaway out there, even if the style will never be to my taste) but in the process they've probably alienated other demos and caused a decline in overall readership.

I very much echo LHolmes' sentiments. The quality of DS 'journalism' has sunk like a stone in the last couple of years, but particularly in the last year or so. The entire front now consists almost entirely of "OMG a thing happened and this is what people on Twitter are saying" pieces. Where are the actual *stories*? Can writers just not be arsed to go looking for interesting stories or news pieces any more? All they seem to do is embed tweets and use other people's opinions for free content. It's so incredibly lazy. Don't even get me started on the labyrinth they call the spoilers page. Impossible to navigate when it used to be absolutely fine.

As I've said before, I used to enjoy DS precisely because it wasn't like every other Mail Online, Buzzfeed, Metro click bait news website. I don't know who this site is aimed at any more, but I've been using DS for more than 12 years and now I only ever use the forums. I respect that they have to move with the time and attract new readers, but this shouldn't be done at the expense other long term subscribers. If they've lost a loyal reader like me then something is clearly not right. The revamp has been a total disaster in my eyes. Not only is the content superficial and vacuous (and the excessive use of gifs and "OMG we can't handle this" headlines are just cringe, grow up ffs) but the ads make the news section virtually unusable on tablet or mobile. The main site crashes about 90% of the time on my iPad, so I just don't bother trying any more.

Who remembers the Cliff Parisi 'to be a father' breaking news banner that was stuck on the forum for days?

You can also tell ITV pays them to write fluff pieces on The X Factor and (of all the shows on telly) This Morning?!?! Do people even care about ITV Breakfast enough to read Buzzfeed-like articles about it?

Having a 'z' instead of an 's' originated in the UK and it is still used in many UK academic articles.

I have noticed a Metro person writing DS articles. I haven't read them but if they're anything like the Metro ones they'll be full of 'will', 'who' and question marks without any real content.

Ahh I do! Those were the days!

LHolmes and Dizagoax have hit the absolute nail on the head!!!!! The DS of old would never have done an article called OMG Honey G just confirmed that she's the best X Factor contestant EVER or whatever they said the other day.

Just had a quick nosey on the main page:


^ These posts are annoying (to me anyway).
Also, series not season!

Yep, this s(h)ite's best days are well and truly behind it. It went wrong from the minute they introduced this awful redesign and it's just got worse from there.

It was silly to take the comments away. Often they were the most entertaining part of an article.

Can anyone remember the name of the guy who owned it before? He got it right.

This Morning even has its own section on the homepage.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/this-morning/

"u wot m8?" is the turn of phrase that applies here.

Dizagaox throws SHADE at Digital Spy

*Waits for the headline*

So this shite is actually getting progressively worse. Constant little "cheeky" comments and obvious bias towards certain characters. The stupid gifs make it worse.

Its columns are "lists" not proper pieces. Talk about dumbing down and trying to take your audience with you. It reads like fanfiction.

Buzzfeed hurt the Internet with its rubbish content and it's clear DS has been hit.

Next DS article 'Is DS turning into buzzfeed' accompanied with a 'roll your eyes' gif

That happened to me to and I had to ring my network provider and get it credited back to my account.

The best thing about Buzzfeed IMO is the comments. So why on Earth they would choose to copy a website and then not copy its best feature is ridiculous. Though I'm sure they didn't want their "articles" to be filled with negative comments. If people trash them on the forums then hey, out of sight out of mind...

I agree.

There was a questionaire I filled in about a month back and I really got my point across that I don't use the site because it is unfunny and nonsensical these days. Whether other people told them the same I don't know.

It's like it's written by Year 6 kids doing a media studies project.

'10 times Digital Spy TOTALLY reminded us of Buzzfeed'

Am I being naive here? How does a site charge you money if you don't enter your bank details?!

The main site is a joke these days. The fact that every other article is filled with twitter reactions, the forced humour in the articles, the sub par buzzfeed list articles, the obsession with friends, the obsession with little mix, the overuse of animated gifs.

If people wanted the buzzfeed experience, they will go to buzzfeed. DS used to be great and now it's a mess.