Instead of increasing cost to customers, maybe cut the fat a bit.  Look, I don't want anyone to lose their jobs, but sometimes that's the only logical business model.  The way I see it Whiskey Media has one site I really enjoy and a bunch of others I've visited about 5 times each.
 
Giant Bomb's staff creates some content I don't care for.  Hell, if the site just consisted of a weekly bombcast and not much else I'd be fine with that.  If they needed me to pay $5 a year to access that one bit of content there'd be no complaints from me at all.
 
Do they need an underground bar and expensive live streaming equipment?  Not in my opinion.  I create a weekly podcast and I don't have a personal arcade or even an office to share with my fellow podcasters.  I receive no compensation, yet I don't begrudge my listeners.  They don't owe me.
 
At the very least being able to subscribe to a single Whiskey Media site would allow the different sites to compete on some level for content quality.  What we have here is intra-business welfare.
 
I believe these comments to be potentially too rational and divisive to post on the forums right now so I will spare the Giant Bomb community that.