Three years ago, when TV Guide bought the television-enthusiast website Jump The Shark, I questioned the value of the acquisition:

I guess this demonstrates how much quantity is valued over quality when it comes to Internet meda outlets. I mean, [JumpTheShark.com] may have started out around a clever concept, but look at where it’s at now: Pages and pages of junky, message-board like crap where rabid “Friends” lovers and haters trade empty insults. Pretty much a dime a dozen, and far astray from the site’s purported mission.

It’s certainly got plenty of regulars, but does this add up to a worthwhile media property? I’m skeptical.

Turns out that it didn’t add up. TV Guide, which itself was purchased by movie/TV studio Lionsgate since adding JTS, recently did away with the archived content and stripped the Jump The Shark brand down to a gossip blog. In fact, I don’t think it’s even much of a blog — the old JumpTheShark.com address not only redirects to tvguide.com/jumptheshark, but the posts themselves are rather bland, with just clumsy keyword tags (and their remnant definitions) signifying the original pop-cultural aesthetic behind the name.

I stick by my original assessment of the original site: It wasn’t all that precious an archive to preserve, because it was 99 percent fanboy junk postings. But why TV Guide saw fit to unceremoniously dump material that clearly had a community following behind it is baffling. Even going with the premise that they bought the JTS brandname instead of the site’s content, the way they’re currently utilizing that brandname doesn’t seem particularly effective.

In any case, it’s safe to declare Jump The Shark plowed under and dead. The phrase has established itself as a hip descriptor for something past its prime, with the added irony that it now applies to its former online home. But that home is now, effectively, gone.

In its place, Bone The Fish is picking up the baton. The new site has managed to reconstruct the original JTS content, including votes and comments for distinct categories of TV show decline (including, of course, the Ted McGinley Syndrome). Will “bone the fish” supplant “jump the shark” in popular lexicon? I don’t see it, but it’s a nice try.