Do You Miss TV Guide The Way It Used To Be?

[BobbyNBC10]

I do remember in July, 1979, when they split the Michigan State Edition, they turned the part that served my area into the Southern Michigan Edition for Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Lansing ,Jackson and the Michiana area by South Bend, Ind. This was when WGN-TV and WSNS-TV both Chicago and HBO were added as was late-night only listings for WTCG/WTBS Atlanta. The following year it was split into the Flint-Lansing and Grand Rapids editions. The Flint_Lansing had WGN ,HBO and the late night WTBS listings plus now, ESPN and Nickelodeon,long before SpongeBob ,and the GR edition had not only WGN, WSNS,WKBD from Detroit,HBO and the late-night WTBS listings,but it added WTTW-Chicago and WTVS Detroit,both PBS stations, plus ESPN and USA Network. Then, after WSNS went to ON-TV programming in the Fall of 1980, full time WTBS coverage was added to the GR edition and the next year to Flint-Lansing. More cable channels were added to both editions before I left Michigan.

In Battle Creek, both editions were sold , as Meijer, K-Mart, Felpausch, Muir Drugs and Perry Drugs carried the Flint-Lansing edition, while other newsstands had GR, and in Sturgis,Michigan ,it was both the GR and Northern Indiana Editions, as the Northern Indiana one, had WGN as a broadcast station with more details on syndicated sitcoms on WGN.

 

[cd637299]

@BobbyNBC10---Not sure of your age, but now you have reminded me of something....

Back when visiting family in Battle Creek MI in the 60s, I saw the Grand Rapids/Lansing TV Guide & I remember WZZM was called "13-12" in the listings. Any idea what that meant? There was no repeater on 12 as such, was there?

Also of course there were two ch 10's, of which I learned later it was the share-time deal WILX & WMSB. Weird to see public TV AND commercial TV on the same channel.

cd

 

[BobbyNBC10]

CD, There was a translator station in Kalamazoo, so that viewers in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek and surrounding environs could get the WZZM-TV signal. This lasted until July24th, 1971 when WUHQ-TV 41 (now WOTV), West Michigan's other ABC station signed on.

Meanwhile, about the two Channel 10's thing. It was a shared time deal with the Television Corporation of Michigan's NBC station WILX-TV which was on 70% of the time, including prime time and WKAR-TV, Michigan State U.'s NET/PBS station ,when it was WMSB-TV 30% of the time. But when NBC had a special (ie. Bob Hope or Miss America) , a sporting event like the World Series or Super Bowl ,or an NBC News Special like conventions, elections, assassinations or space shots, WMSB-TV would let WILX-TV have Channel 10. This deal lasted from 3/15/1959 to 9/9/1972, and the next day, WKAR-TV returned on 23 with WILX-TV going full time NBC on Channel 10.

 

[cd637299]

Bobby, thank you for solving a 40+ year mystery! The info on ch 10 distribution is interesting to know as well.

cd

 

[kirkiefan]

Absolutely!...thanks to Montgomery Burns/er....Rupert Murdoch.

No local TV station listings,no local programs...just something to line the cat liiter box with.

TV Guide now just another tabloid for the undereducated hilljacks moving from house to house and selling drugs to pay their bills.

 

[BobbyNBC10]

I would get it not only to see the best bets on TV, and what sports and movies will air, but also to see who would be on celebrity game shows like Password, Match Game, Hollywood Squares, What's My Line?,To Tell The Truth and Pyramid among others, and also to see who Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, Dick Cavett, Dinah Shore ,Tom Snyder and Phil Donahue would have on their shows and also to see what would be on The Today Show and Good Morning America.

I think the growth of cable-satellite Tv...and the internet and on screen guides,too, doomed TV Guide in it's original format.

 

[azumanga]

That takes it back to the days when TVG cost you all of...gasp...15 cents. Inflation.

The first price hike to TVG came in 1974 when it went up to . . . . . . 20 cents.

And when that happened, TVG included a little note on the first page of the listings section, apologising for the increase.

 

[azumanga]

I do remember in July, 1979, when they split the Michigan State Edition, they turned the part that served my area into the Southern Michigan Edition for Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Lansing ,Jackson and the Michiana area by South Bend, Ind. This was when WGN-TV and WSNS-TV both Chicago and HBO were added as was late-night only listings for WTCG/WTBS Atlanta. The following year it was split into the Flint-Lansing and Grand Rapids editions.

When Michigan State was split into two, the Northern Michigan edition was created, which included all stations for Flint / Tri-Cities, Traverse City / Cadillac and Alpens, plus selected stations for Lansing (all except WILX), Detroit (WJBK, WDIV, WXYZ, CBET and WKBD) and Grand Rapids (I think just WZZM). That edition also had WTBS listings at all hours.

Around late 1980 or so (don't know, as I moved to Florida in 1979), Flint, Saginaw, Bay City and The Thumb now got the new "Flint-Lansing" edition, which also included the Lansing listings spun off from Southern Michigan. This edition now included all Mid-Michigan, Lansing and Grand Rapids channels, plus the same selection of Detroit channels from before (though I think WXON and WTVS were later added). Midland and Arenac County northward still got Northern Michigan, which included the same channels as before, but with the Detroit channels dropped (other than WKBC and, maybe, CBET).

 

[azumanga]

In our local area, channel 12 was channel 13 on cable, channel 3 was on channel 2, channel 16 was on channel 7 etc. This confused the old folks. Too many channel numbers to have to deal with and on top of that you had out of market channels listed also which often had the same channel numbers further confusing Grandma.

Which is why in some markets (such as Fort Myers), stations ID themselves either with just the calls, or using their cable slot. TVG, however, used the aerial channels in all markets for their listings exclusively, except for the cable editions where available. For instance: since the early 1990s, WZVN in Fort Myers always ID'd themselves as "ABC 7" or "Channel 7", after the cable slot on many area systems, but the Tampa-Sarasota TVG always listed that channel as "26", its aerial channel.

 

[Gregg]

So the big question is WHY? Why did TV Guide get rid of local listings?

I know the reason stated was that viewers were going to the cable program guide channel for listings (which in some communities was The TV Guide Channel). But did TV Guide do any research? Was there evidence at that time that people weren't buying TV Guide because they could get the same info from their cable system? With all the choices on cable, I'd think the listings in TV Guide were more important than ever, so I could choose between my many cable and broadcast programs.

If you're watching the program guide channel and you missed what was on Channel 6, you'd have to wait maybe a minute and a half before Channel 6 came back up again. The listings on the program guide channel were just minimal. Is this episode of Friends a repeat? Did I see this Seinfeld before? Who knows? What about a program that was more than two hours away? The program channel doesn't go further than two hours in advance.

Yes, I know that now cable systems have interactive program guides where you can find this info... If you really know how to use them. But when TV Guide ended local listings, most of us didn't have these sorts of program guides that we could scroll ourselves looking for a program.

Was it just getting too expensive in paper and man-hours to compile and print schedules for dozens of broadcast and cable channels?

Gregg
[email protected]

 

[ShawnHill1]

My late grandmother was a longtime subscriber to TV Guide for as long as I can remember, and as a subscriber to the local papers, she would, of course, get the weekly TV listings insert. Let's just say that TVG was vastly superior. She would get her copy in the mail about 4-5 days beforehand, and she would plan her prime time viewing by marking by pen what shows she wanted to see that week (usually Dallas, baseball games, movie or variety special, and so on).

I pretty much stopped reading TV Guide maybe around the early 2000s, and pretty that's pretty much it started going down in quality. That, and the fact that digital cable and satellite was growing, plus with the interactive EPGs being available, it made TV Guide (both magazine and TV channel) pretty useless.

 

[BRNout]

YES, I miss it too. I used to collect them from different cities when I was a kid and wonder if those old editions are in my folks' basement somewhere. However, I also understand why they did what they did. ShawnHill1 does a good job of summarizing what happened. The publication simply outlived it's purpose. I'd say that it's finest years were during the 1980s, with more and more local editions showing up - but that's just opinion. The older ones from the 50s, 60s and 70s are certainly more fun to read!

Honestly, they probably would have been wiser if they just closed up shop and ended it. It's sad, but I think it had to go. What they put in its place simply tarnishes the name of a formerly beloved publication and is worse than useless.

 

[RBW]

Too many channel numbers to have to deal with and on top of that you had out of market channels listed also which often had the same channel numbers further confusing Grandma.

Yes, the cable editions presented a readers' challenge. But at least they tried to differentiate between duplicated channels. I mean we always had the black channels and the white channels, but then they would black out half the channel. ie - black 1 & white 2 so that ch. 12 would have both shades. Or it would have the channel with a white backround, and black borders on either side. Still somewhat confusing, which meant the listing page was even more important to have as a reference.

 

[BobbyNBC10]

we always had the black channels and the white channels, but then they would black out half the channel. ie - black 1 & white 2 so that ch. 12 would have both shades. Or it would have the channel with a white backround, and black borders on either side. Still somewhat confusing, which meant the listing page was even more important to have as a reference.

When the Southern Michigan Edition came out they would do WGN-TV with black on the left and right and 9 on white in the middle and both WTBS 17 Atlanta and WSNS Tv 44 Chicago had the first number in black on white and the second in reverse.

 

[RBW]

That takes it back to the days when TVG cost you all of...gasp...15 cents. Inflation.

The first price hike to TVG came in 1974 when it went up to . . . . . . 20 cents.

I remember the little line of text at the bottom of the page giving the subscription rates.
An entire year was less than $8 ((perhaps that was after the big price hike!))

 

[EZway2go]

As someone stated previously, they seem to have become a tabloid, as evidenced by "special issues" like The 50 Hottest Bodies On Television. Even when they feature something decent like the 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time, most of the shows are newer ones, say, within the last 20 years.

I forget now exactly what it was, but the last time I looked at an issue, I remember being surprised at not seeing either late-night listings or any M-F daytime detail. In fact, it was obvious the TV listings themselves were just an afterthought to the celebrity news and gossip.

If you're watching the program guide channel and you missed what was on Channel 6, you'd have to wait maybe a minute and a half before Channel 6 came back up again.

Likewise, if you caught the end of some movie you never saw before and want to know what it was, it's a guarantee you just missed seeing that time slot, and by the time it rolls around again, the next show is already listed.

I used to collect them from different cities when I was a kid and wonder if those old editions are in my folks' basement somewhere. The older ones from the 50s, 60s and 70s are certainly more fun to read!

I collected the Fall Preview issue every year. It was fun to go back through them every few years and see how many shows premiered, ran their course, and got cancelled... and I never saw one single episode. Surprisingly, there were many I never even heard of.

 

[MarcB]

What I thought was stupid is that they did not list channels showing infomercials. Example UPN 9 WWOR NYC (along with WCBS, WNBC, WNYW, WABC, and WNET) was listed in the Hartford-New Haven Edition. UPN 9 used to (and probably still does) showed a 6 hour block of infomercials 6AM-Noon on Saturdays, so UPN 9 would not appear in the listings until they showed regular programming at Noon (which if I recall was The UPN Saturday Movie).

Another thing. They never put Channel 18 in Hartford back in the listings. Channel 18 was WHCT and went dark in April 1991. They were resurrected in 1997 first showing Bud Paxson Worship Network and then switching to home shopping first Shop-at-Home and later Valuevision (I don't recall when Valuevision became ShopNBC). That's understandable why they weren't listed. But around 2000 (or 2001) Entravision bought the station and it became WUVN Hartford's Univision affiliate. If you wanted to know what was on Channel 18 you would have to look up UNI, which was the listings for the national feed of Univision, which did not always match what was on Channel 18.

Also they did not list WRDM-LP Channel 13 (now channel 50) even though they were on most cable systems. They also did not list Telemundo so you had no idea what was on Channel 13 unless you turned on The TV Guide Channel.

 

[azumanga]

Where infomercials are concerned -- when they first came on the scene, they were listed by title. By the early, 1990s, they were listed only as "Commercial Program(s)", then as "Paid Program". By the end of the 90s, there was no listed whatsoever. By doing so, it was hard to tell if a station was showing an infomercial, was off the air, or is showing something else that is unscheduled.

As for a lack of WUVN and WRDM -- I think TVG had standards in which a station must cover a minimum percentage of a market area in order for it to be listed. Apparently, none of the stations met the standards. Though on the other hand, a lack of WUVN might have been laziness and/or stubborness on TVG's part.

 

[TexasTom]

So the big question is WHY? Why did TV Guide get rid of local listings?

They were losing money -- and felt that the way to turn "TV Guide" around was to eliminate the expense associated with generating all those local editions. And considering the declining circulation over the past 25 years or so, I suspect that the circulation for some of those local editions just wasn't enough to justified their continued existence. So, instead, they chose to turn the magazine into a "me too" version of "People", "Entertainment Weekly", and the rest of that ilk.

Whether that will turn out to be a successful turnaround or the dying gasp of a once hugely successful magazine...well, who knows?

But they've certainly taken a huge dive from where they once were. In the seventies, weekly circulation was in the neighborhood of 20 million copies sold -- a number that only "Reader's Digest" (which is also struggling today) could approach. Their subsequent decline has been blamed on the proliferation of cable channels and the existence of electronic program guides, and I suspect that this is part of the truth. But it may not be the whole story, because "TV Guide" started losing readers in the eighties, long before either of those were much of a factor.

I attribute the start of the decline to Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the magazine in the mid-eighties. Around that time, both the editorial conent and the listings took a hit. The editorial content lost much of it's range, with articles on TV technology, business, and regulatory issues entirely disappearing in favor of cheap articles about cleebrities and the like. Patly, it was cost cutting -- but I suspect that it was also the case that Murdoch saw "TV Guide"s coverage of media issues as being in conflict with his desire to work the rules for his own benefit.

On the program listing side, episodic descriptions for programmings running during daytime hours were cut back, and in many cases eliminated completely. Circulation dipped significantly, but presumably the cost cutting kept the magazine profitable.

So am I saying that "TV Guide" could have survived in it's old form if not for Murdoch's cost cutting. Not necessarily. Today, the average cable/satellite subscriber gets over a hundred channels, and listing that many channels is unwieldy at best. I'm not sure that there is a good way to make the old format work in today's environment. So it might well be that "TV Guide" would have died no matter what was done to salvage the old version of the magazine.

The best way to make the case that the magazine was doomed is to simply ask around and try to find anyone other than people like those of us who hang around in this type of forum who miss the old "TV Guide". I suspect that we'll find very few...and that, ultimately, is why the old "TV Guide" was going to fade away.

 

[crainbebo]

Yes, yes, yes!! I miss it! WHY, oh WHY did TV Guide change in the this crappy s**t magazine now?!?

-crainbebo