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TV Guide Spotlight
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Anyone Else Prefer The Old TVGuide?
I am very unhappy with the ne TVGuide.
I buy TVGuide because I want to know what is on TV. Articles are nice, but I am more concerned with what is one TV.
I cannot find out what is on before 8:00 at night, or after 11:00 at night.
Three hours a day now, as compared to 24 hours a day before.
VERY unhappy with new TVGuide.
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Dec 9, 2006 10:29 PM
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No one out there is interested in anything but the three hours between 8-11pm?
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Dec 10, 2006 10:59 AM
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I too get "TV Guide" for the TV listings, and I care little for the articles. Thankfully, the "TV Guide" website now has a workable (and pretty neat) TV listings.
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Dec 10, 2006 2:06 PM
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Thing is I subscribe to it. I am wasting money by doing so, I see.
I still wish someone else would come out with a new Guide for TV. I switch in a second.
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Dec 10, 2006 2:12 PM
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yes yes yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hate the online format...will miss the print version...especially in the fall
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Dec 10, 2006 9:51 PM
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I thought I was the only one who disliked the new Guide. Can't see times of Sunday football games, Saturday and Sunday Movies. If I wanted a Gossip magazine I would subscribe to one. I am thinking of cancelling my subscription. My wife keeps asking me why do you get that thing (TV guide) Liked the old one a whole lot better. . Some of the content and pictures that go along with the articles are better suited for adult Magazines. JMO.
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Dec 11, 2006 3:02 PM
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I cancelled my subscription 3 weeks into the new format (last year) and requested a refund .... the new guide SUX!!!
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Dec 11, 2006 4:21 PM
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I have been buying TV Guide since the early sixties and am totally appalled by the dramatic downturn in the mag. in the past couple of years. I have friends who have even dropped their subscription due to the poor quality since it's change in format. It appears that having a monopoly leads to a lack of concern about providing the consumer with what they buy the mag. for and only concern with the bottom line.
Shame on you TV Guide for letting us all down!
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Dec 12, 2006 8:20 AM
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Yes -- can't tell you how many other people feel the same way. I don't want to have to log on to find out what's on! I'm hoping since TV Guide gave up their monopoly -- someone - anyone will pick it up. I'd gladly pay to read the guide at my leisure, to mark old movies - or recent cable ones. Bring back TV GUIDE!!!!!!!!!!
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Dec 12, 2006 11:19 AM
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It's obvious that TVGuide got to big to care what it was originally intended for.....to inform us of what was on TV.
There are numerous people around here who will gladly jump to a new contender who will show us what is actually on TV (for more then 3 hrs a day).
We all feel very let down.
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Dec 12, 2006 8:04 PM
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I have been unhappy with the new magazine for some time. I sort of like the size now but what happened to the daytime listings where they showed what was on the daytime talk shows, etc. There are actually people out here that like to know what is on the morning shows before they miss seeing someone they wanted to see. I miss this very much. Also, why do they show the page after the TV listing where they give you the rundown on some of the evening shows--why not "before" the TV listings for that day?
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Dec 12, 2006 11:31 PM
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There is no need for the word "Guide" in the title of the magazine anymore. One of the greatest mistakes TVG has made is in underestimating the number of or undervaluing the people who bought the magazine for the descriptive blurbs about the shows and for the schedules. The website listsings feature is okay but is is slow to load and has none of the personality of the old magazine.
Because TVG went ot the grid form and gave short shrift to daytime listings I stopped buying the magazine a long time ago. For the last few years I have been using Yahoo TV to plan my viewing but their revamped site is ridiculously unweildly. There is really any satisfying guide to be found anywhere.
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Dec 13, 2006 5:16 AM
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I'm with DaMess, the "guide" in the title is no longer really relevant (though I do think the magazine still serves as a general guide to the best shows on TV in a given week). I do think they may have underestimated how many people still used it explicitly as a 24 hour programming guide - but I also think that the on-screen guides on satellite and digital cable (which TV Guide frequently operates - at least on digital cable), not to mention Tivo (which is one of the best "guides" out there because it gets daily updates to compensate for programming changes), have kind of made the "need" for a print version less necessary for a lot of people. I have to admit, I haven't used a TV Guide to look up programs (other than maybe information on a special or episode) in probably 7/8 years (and I've been getting my own TV Guide subscription for 15 years - I'm 24), unless I was at my grandmother's house or in a hotel somewhere that had an older cable system. Even before I got digital cable (which had the multi-day guide option as far back as '98), I often used the TV Guide channel or the internet, rather than the magazine. Undoubtedly, I'm of a different generation than some readers who have been with the magazine since the 60s (I'd love to read those issues!), and I'm sure that contributes to my indifference. Still - a print TV programming grid (other than the Sunday newspaper insert that always suck) SHOULD probably be available.
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Dec 13, 2006 11:24 AM
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If I had never seen the old TV Guide, I would think the new TV Guide is a perfectly lovely magazine.
However...I have seen the old TV Guide. I bought it for 30 years and, by comparison, the new magazine is just a sad waste of paper.
In the last few years of the old TV Guide, I had become disenchanted with the pathetically desperate sales-goosing tactics like multiple covers aimed at sci-fi fanboy collectors and tie-ins with blockbuster movies (what does The X-Men have to do with TV?).
But I'd rather have that than what we have now.
Like I said, there is nothing technically wrong with the new magazine. It's just, as a TV guide -- i.e. a guide to TV -- it falls woefully short. In fact, for that purpose, it's virtually useless.
Obviously, grid listings for just three hours a day just doesn't cut it (and, no, I don't count those daytime grids).
I miss plot and guest cast information for shows.
I don't like the fact that it doesn't allow for local variations. Last Monday, I set my VCR to tape How I Met Your Mother. I found out later that my Houston CBS affiliate had pre-empted it for a Christmas special -- but by then I had already missed it. Of course, the old magazine would have had this kind of information.
As for the online listings: Look, I'm not an old fuddy duddy who can't use the computer -- I'm perfectly capable. But sometimes you just want to be able to grab something quickly and find out in a snap what is on.
I refuse to believe that an old-style TV Guide can't be published and be economically feasible. What ultimately killed the magazine was excess and trying to chase too many niche audiences and, dare I say it, too much self hype.
Unfortunately, this same kind of malarkey is rearing its ugly head with the new magazine, too. (Why do I have an Elvis CD plastered to the cover of my new TV Guide? Because, like the sci-fi fanboy crowd, the Elvis faithful are another go-to group when they need a circulation boost. Catering to obsessive collector niches is a BIG mistake. You would think they had learned that lesson with the old magazine.)
If someone were to come out with a new magazine that adhered to TV Guide's roots (emphasis on listings and in-depth star profiles) rather than to the flash-and-dazzle train wreck version of the last ten years or so, I think it could find an audience.
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Dec 14, 2006 8:20 PM
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At least you have a TV Guide. Living in Canada they've just cancelled printing of the TV Guide. You have to rely on the TV Guide channel for show listings or the web - neither of which are convenient.
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Dec 18, 2006 6:08 PM
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