TV Guide commits suicide
Jul. 26th, 2005 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridlockjoeAttention: Uber-geek alert!
The magazine will ditch its digest-sized format in favor of a full-size, full-color format with more stories about TV shows than listings... [and will] eliminate its 140 localized editions in favor of a national edition.
I have collected the local editions of TV Guide for 30 years, ever since the July 6, 1974 issue with Lucille Ball on the cover, when I found a wrong edition on the newsstand in my grandparents' home town. I was amazed that they got NBC on channel 2, 4, and 11, not 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 12... and the hunt was on to find more. I wrote to the general manager of the Dallas sales office, and was rewarded with a box full of every edition of that week's issue of the magazine!
I still keep up with the magazine, and run a web page that links to the lists of local channels in each edition, even though the magazine doesn't print them anymore. And in two months, they won't even print the local editions anymore.
In its heyday, TV Guide cast a very critical eye on the business and programming of television. It will be missed.
The magazine will ditch its digest-sized format in favor of a full-size, full-color format with more stories about TV shows than listings... [and will] eliminate its 140 localized editions in favor of a national edition.
I have collected the local editions of TV Guide for 30 years, ever since the July 6, 1974 issue with Lucille Ball on the cover, when I found a wrong edition on the newsstand in my grandparents' home town. I was amazed that they got NBC on channel 2, 4, and 11, not 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 12... and the hunt was on to find more. I wrote to the general manager of the Dallas sales office, and was rewarded with a box full of every edition of that week's issue of the magazine!
I still keep up with the magazine, and run a web page that links to the lists of local channels in each edition, even though the magazine doesn't print them anymore. And in two months, they won't even print the local editions anymore.
In its heyday, TV Guide cast a very critical eye on the business and programming of television. It will be missed.
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A plague on all their channels!
Date: 2005-07-27 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 11:19 pm (UTC)(For the record, I am now at 1,160 and counting.)