How would you change your newspaper's TV insert if you had the clout?

[ding12]

The Philadelphia Inquirer has given Lehigh Valley's WLVT 39 great real estate space, even though all the SJ counties and N. Delaware, which are in the paper's circulation area, can't receive WLVT on Comcast. Within SE PA, WLVT's signal has always been weak as well. The availability of the channel was prevalent through cable and now satellite, although even Dish and DirecTV didn't carry this station right away, and it was dropped from DirecTV, for an unexplained reason, for a short period of time.

However, WLVT's programming lineup often exceeds WHYY and many Philly residents dislike WHYY, so to some, it's viewed as a better PBS station.

Side note: From DirecTV's website, it appears it carries WHYY and WLVT both in HD, while Dish's website is indicating in the Philadelphia market, it isn't offering any PBS station in HD.

The Courier Post of Cherry Hill lists WPSJ, a low power station, with an inaccurate programming schedule. It's a hard to get station, not on cable, with crap programming schedule, which for some reason has gotten great real estate space and ink, in that paper.

When TV Guide did listings, for Philadelphia, it included the primary NY VHF channels, for the benefit of Mercer and Ocean counties, which is a small subset of the circulation that edition of the magazine had. It's odd today that Ocean county was on a Philadelphia edition in the first place, and grocery stores were being stocked with the Philadelphia edition, given that the county is NY DMA. (Although the use of DMA for retail segmentation purposes seemed to be strengthened in the late 90s)

While Comcast carries more Philly signals, Fios only only carries WPVI 6 from Philadelphia, based off a list the FCC had created nationwide, on SV channels, that only listed WPVI as a SV channel there.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Bought a Sunday paper a couple of weeks back for the first time in many years.
(the wife insisted there was some sort of coupon in there she just HAD to have!)

Very sad experience. The thing was shrunken down to a fraction of it's former size.
Both shorter and narrower, and not as many pages/sections as I remember them having
on Fridays years ago. During Garage Sale Season the Pennysaver might even be heavier.
Badly truncated sports section. ONE SHEET of Sunday comics, with strips shrunken down
so small you can barely read them. Mostly old-time strips where the creators have passed on
and they are either re-runs or being done by other artists.
And yes, the TV section was near non-existent.

Which should not shock me as I always use my on-screen guide and quit taking the
daily paper years ago for various reasons.

 

[vibe]

I think the lack of subchannels in many newspapers that actually carry the TV listings cause many people to continue with cable/sat as opposed to getting their programming/news/entertainment etc OTA and free.

 

[Tom Wells]

What OTA channel carries TV listings? ???

I have never seen an on-screen guide show up on my TV, ever.

Not that I would ever expect anyone to expend the power for a broadcast signal just to run a directory.

It is just as unlikely that I would ever subscribe to a wideband digital delivery system for TV that
ruins radio reception on my property as a result of signal leakage.
One of the first things I did when I moved to my current house was pulll all the TV coax and call the cable company
to come remove the drop wire before I yanked it out of the junction box.

 

[fybush]

I think the lack of subchannels in many newspapers that actually carry the TV listings cause many people to continue with cable/sat as opposed to getting their programming/news/entertainment etc OTA and free.

I suspect you're massively overestimating the influence that a quarter of a page of TV listings (in a paper that's lucky to hit 25% or 30% total market penetration in most cases) is going to have on "many people"'s decisions about how they get their TV.

For whatever it's worth, our local paper here does list subchannels, such as they are (Bounce, MeTV, CW and two PBS subs), and cable/sat penetration is still up in the 85% range.

Looking at the broader picture, I don't think there's ever been a time when TV listings have been a profit center for newspapers. They carried the listings (and radio listings before that) because readers demanded them, but there was often a sense that providing those listings was essentially supplying free promotion to a competitor. Even a decade ago, the few Sunday papers that dared to drop their listings or cut them back tended to hear about it, loudly, from disgruntled readers. As many here have observed, that has changed dramatically with the advent of on-screen and on-line program guides that are better suited to the 500-channel universe. I'm mildly surprised our paper here even continues to carry the stripped-down listings it carries.

As the daily print newspaper becomes a thing of the past (New Orleans, Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville all lose theirs in a few months), I suspect the TV listings will go, too. Why would a paper that only comes out three days a week continue to try to provide daily listings?

 

[Mario500]

As the daily print newspaper becomes a thing of the past (New Orleans, Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville all lose theirs in a few months), I suspect the TV listings will go, too. Why would a paper that only comes out three days a week continue to try to provide daily listings?

The Mobile Press-Register may continue to print their weekly "TV Preview" booklet for Friday newspapers as part of their new schedule this autumn (Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday). The daily TV listings printed in recent months consisted only of programs scheduled for broadcast between 6:00 PM and 1:00 AM (Central) while newspaper subscribers were given the option to receive "daytime TV listings" by electronic mail.

 

[kenglish]

What OTA channel carries TV listings? ???

I have never seen an on-screen guide show up on my TV, ever.

Not that I would ever expect anyone to expend the power for a broadcast signal just to run a directory.

It is just as unlikely that I would ever subscribe to a wideband digital delivery system for TV that
ruins radio reception on my property as a result of signal leakage.
One of the first things I did when I moved to my current house was pulll all the TV coax and call the cable company
to come remove the drop wire before I yanked it out of the junction box.

If I ever get a house, the only way I'll allow Cable TV is if it is Quad Shield, inside a grounded metal conduit. ;D

OTA TV is supposed to have EPG information supplied, but their is a waiver for "low-power" stations. Many of the "was-high-power-but-went-with-a-lower-power" DTV stations seem to feel that they are in that category.
You have to scan each channel, though, to get a complete guide, since each station provides their own.

Unfortunately, many receivers and STB's do things their own way. Some don't at all.

 

[easttxtv]

That's why I said "a local CW station", because the circustances causing a cable-only WB/CW have long since changed, even though the paper is still in the past when it comes to that. No one has tried to rearrange the listing to the local section or label it with the correct channel or call letters since.

I wonder what good would it do to contact the paper and tell them that the channel selection is woefully out of date?

I've thought many times about doing just that, but I'm afraid I'd get some lame excuse about 'not enough room' or 'no one is assigned to just work on the TV section', or worse, 'we have our TV section done by a third party'. The "Daily Disappointment" (as my mother used to call it) has had a change of general manager or whatever the head-honcho title is within the past year or so; she asked readers then what they'd like to see in the paper. I should have sent along something to her attention then. I wonder if she'd even be receptive now.

Well, strangely enough, this week the paper named a new publisher-in-chief (or whatever the position is called) who will oversee both this paper and another co-owned paper about 40 miles away. I just got through sending him a detailed email that hopefully gives him the idea of the kind of TV section he has at his new position. It would be nice if he actually took what I said seriously instead of giving it the File-13 treatment, but I guess I'll see soon enough.

 

[arnoldevns]

Growing up, I used to get up early and go get the paper for my dad each Sunday morning just so I could pull out the TV listings and look at them. It was produced by the Dallas Morning News and contained a lot of writing about what was on local stations. It had long detailed descriptions of the movies that were on and also described in some detail what was going on with regular prime-time network dramas and comedies.

It did not include cable listings at the time because cable was not a big enough viewing option to make it worth their while. It did actually have a box listing the local radio stations and what their formats were - plus any particular interesting shows they might air.

Over the years, it grew in size due to the fact it had to include listings for 24 hours a day since stations started staying on the air all night. It grew when 33, 21 and 27 came on the air in the early 80s. It grew when cable became big enough to warrant the inclusion of their listings in the guide.

We used to use a highlighter or pencil to highlight the programs we wanted to watch during the week. It was always left open to that day in the living room so when we sat down in front of the set we could see what was on at a moment's glance.

When I moved away from home, I still used to look in the guide to see what was on, but not as much. I even had TV Guide for a while and enjoyed that, but it still wasn't as "needed" as it used to be. I started to get used to tuning in to the TV Guide channel to see what was on.

Then... the final nail in the coffin: I got a cable system that had a electronic program guide. That was it. It had pretty much everything the newspaper listings had and more. I could set my cable box to switch to a program at a given time so my VCR could record the show.

The guide on my cable system has gotten better and better. It's now on a box with a DVR that can record two shows at once.
My newspaper simply couldn't compete.

Rather than do something to improve the guide and give me something I can't get through my cable box, the paper has gone the exact opposite direction and started to try to charge me extra for a service I no longer see value in. I don't get the listings in my newspaper anymore because I refuse to pay the extra fee for them.

So what could the Morning News do to improve their listings:
1. Include them as part of their regular subscription again.
2. Make the local broadcast listings the focal point and include the subchannel listings. (yes, obviously they need to continue showing the national cable listings too)
3. Have a local columnist write about the best programs coming up that week, whether local or national. The Morning News muted their one TV columnist years ago and he left. (Ed Bark now has his own blog: unclebarky.com) The folks they have left are not allowed to do much real reporting or writing about local television and we get a lot of meaningless AP writing on national shows.
4. Don't ignore internet shows. I would love for the TV insert to also talk about some of the more popular online shows. My wife loves an online soap called "The Bay." I've enjoyed a number of things like Cali Lewis' "Geek Beat TV." In all cases, I stumbled across them by accident and wish I had known about them earlier. If I knew my local newspaper's TV insert might tell me about stuff like that, I would be far more inclined to go buy it.

 

[KML0224]

They advertise some kind of TV weekly magazine of sorts here in Connecticut, usually on WTIC-TV (FOX) channel 61 of Hartford. I'm not sure if it's an associated publication of The Hartford Courant or not. I haven't bought that paper in ages. I do know that, in the past, they used to have a huge grid every day which listed some of the stations in Boston/Cambridge, Springfield (MA) and New York City/Secaucus. Nearly every cable system in the state was listed, too.

 

[easttxtv]

That's why I said "a local CW station", because the circustances causing a cable-only WB/CW have long since changed, even though the paper is still in the past when it comes to that. No one has tried to rearrange the listing to the local section or label it with the correct channel or call letters since.

I wonder what good would it do to contact the paper and tell them that the channel selection is woefully out of date?

I've thought many times about doing just that, but I'm afraid I'd get some lame excuse about 'not enough room' or 'no one is assigned to just work on the TV section', or worse, 'we have our TV section done by a third party'. The "Daily Disappointment" (as my mother used to call it) has had a change of general manager or whatever the head-honcho title is within the past year or so; she asked readers then what they'd like to see in the paper. I should have sent along something to her attention then. I wonder if she'd even be receptive now.

Well, strangely enough, this week the paper named a new publisher-in-chief (or whatever the position is called) who will oversee both this paper and another co-owned paper about 40 miles away. I just got through sending him a detailed email that hopefully gives him the idea of the kind of TV section he has at his new position. It would be nice if he actually took what I said seriously instead of giving it the File-13 treatment, but I guess I'll see soon enough.

I sent him the email over the weekend, and Monday morning after work, I found a response already.

Mr. (easttxtv),
[...]
Thanks for the heads-up on the listing. You're right they are provided by a third party. We have a contract with them and can change the grids at the end of each period. I will check into this and as soon as we are able we will update the grids. Thanks again and thank you for reading the JDP.
(Mr. Bigwig)


Well, at least it sounds promising. I wonder how surprised he was at seeing how out-of-date the listings were. I'm guessing a "period" for them is a fiscal thing, like a quarter or something. So, looks like I'll need to take a peek online every few weeks (in lieu of the new publisher actually letting me know by email in advance) of any changes. It'll be interesting to see how they'll arrange them.

 

[vchimpanzee]

How about -- not charge an additional fee to have the TV listings insert put in the Sunday paper?

Or in my case Saturday's. I'm now paying over $200 a year and the paper just keeps getting smaller.

And they don't even bother with episode summaries like they did when I first had to get it separately. You have to hope your show is one of the featured ones that gets a detailed description on the other page.

But at least I had something to take to the mountains, where there was no listings channel on cable.

 

[1069_KIFR]

In Full HD color and in Braille!

 

[bmasters1981]

My brother got me a Sunday Washington Post from his trip up north, and I'm glad to see that they still have a TV Guide on Sundays. The difference is that now it has just Washington broadcast stations, where before they had Washington and Baltimore.