TV Guide
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Phil Silver TV Guide cover |
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TV Guide cover of the 50 Greatest TV Characters Ever, which includes a photo of Spock |
TV Guide is the name of two North American weekly
magazines about
television programming, one in the
United States and one in
Canada. Although the magazines share the same name and a similar logo, they are owned by different companies and publish distinct editorial content. The magazine was started by
Walter Annenberg.
In addition to TV listings, the publications feature television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews. Some even featured horoscope listings and
crossword puzzles.
The national
TV Guide was first published on
April 3,
1953. Its premiere issue cover featured a photograph of
Lucille Ball and
Desi Arnaz's newborn son,
Desi Arnaz, Jr.TV Guide as a national publication resulted from Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications' purchase of numerous regional television listing publications such as
TV List,
TV Forecast,
TV Digest,
Television Guide and
TV Guide. The launch as a national publication with local listings in April, 1953 became an almost instant success with the magazine becoming the most read and circulated magazine in the country by the 1960's. The initial cost was just 15¢ per copy. In addition to subscriptions,
TV Guide was a weekly selection from its familiar rack at grocery store check-out counters nationwide; into the 1970s, each week's issue's features were promoted in a television commercial. Under the ownership of Triangle Publications
TV Guide continued to grow not only in circulation, but in recognition as the authority on television programming with articles from both staff and contributing writers.
The
TV Guide logo remains one of the most recognized publication logos today. Over the decades the shape of the logo has changed to reflect the modernization of the television screen. At first, the logo had various color backgrounds (usually black, white, blue or green) until the familiar red background became a standard in the 1960's with occasional changes to accommodate a special edition.
Under Triangle Publications,
TV Guide was first based in a small office in downtown Philadelphia until moving to more spacious national headquarters in
Radnor, Pennsylvania in the late 1950's. The new facility complete with a large lighted
TV Guide logo at the building's entrance was home to management, editors, production personnel, subscription processors as well as a vast computer system holding data on every show and movie available for listing in the popular weekly publication. Printing of the national color section of
TV Guide took place at Triangle's Gravure Division plant adjacent to Triangle's landmark Philadelphia Inquirer Building on North Broad Street in Philadelphia. The color section was then sent to regional printers to be wrapped around the local listing sections. Triangle's Gravure Division was known for performing some of the highest quality printing in the industry with almost always perfect registration.
Triangle Publications was a well-respected and growing communications firm which, in addition to
TV Guide owned The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, 16 radio and television stations (
WFIL AM-
FM-
TV Philadelphia, PA, WNHC AM-FM-
TV New Haven, CT, KFRE AM-FM-
TV Fresno, CA, WNBF AM-FM-
TV Binghamton, NY, WFBG AM-FM-
TV Altoona, PA and
WLYH-TV Lancaster/Lebanon, PA) The Daily Racing Form, The Morning Telegraph, and Seventeen magazine and various cable TV interests. It was under Triangle's ownership of WFIL in Philadelphia that Dick Clark and American Bandstand came to popularity. Triangle Publications sold its Philadelphia newspapers to Knight Newspapers in 1969, its radio and television stations during the early 1970's to Capital Cities Communications and various other interests retaining only
TV Guide,
Seventeen Magazine and the
Daily Racing Form which were also later sold to News America Corp. in the late 1980's in one of the largest multiple billion dollar purchases of the time.
In the 1990s,
TV Guide acquired the
Prevue Channel and renamed it the
TV Guide Channel. Like its predecessor, it scrolls TV listings on the bottom portion of the screen. However the top portion now features celebrity gossip, movie talk, and commercials (in addition to the movie trailers that once took up the bulk of the Prevue Channel's programing). Until recently, the programs on the TV Guide Channel generally only lasted from 30 seconds to a minute, and thus were usually scheduled to play on the hour (for instance a show might appear at 12:45 and again at 1:45). Today, TV Guide Channel runs full length programming, including programs such as the weekly entertainment news magazine
The 411, and red carpet event coverage hosted by Joan and Melissa Rivers.
From its inception until 2003,
TV Guide offered listings for the entire week, 24 hours a day. Beginning with the
June 21,
2003 issue (in just a few select markets), the 5am-5pm Monday-Friday listings were condensed down to four grids: 5am-8am, 8am-11am, 11am-2pm, 2pm-5pm. If programming differed from one weekday to the next, "Various Programs" was listed. This change became permanent in all
TV Guide editions beginning with the 2003 Fall Preview issue.
Further modifications, none beneficial to the magazine's listings, continued to take place. Beginning in January 2004, the midnight-5am listings (and also 5am-8am on the Saturday and Sunday listings) did not include any out-of-town broadcast stations, just the edition's home market. Starting in July 2004 the overnight listings were taken out entirely, replaced by a grid that ran from 11pm-2am and had the edition's home market broadcast stations, with a handful of cable stations. It also listed a small selection of late-night movies on some channels. The daytime grids also changed from the 5am-5pm listings, to 7am-7pm. In early 2005 more channels were added to the prime-time and late night grids. The magazine also changed format to start the week's issue with Sunday listings, rather than Saturday listings, changing a tradition that started from the magazine's first issue.
On
May 18,
2005,
TV Guide launched
TV Guide Talk, a weekly
podcast available for free. The podcast is headlined by
TV Guide reporter/personality
Michael Ausiello, and is co-hosted by his co-workers,
Angel Cohn,
Daniel Manu, and
Maitland McDonaghOn
July 26,
2005, Gemstar announced that
TV Guide would be retooled from its
digest size format to a larger full-size national magazine that will offer more stories and fewer TV listings. All 140 local editions were also eliminated, being replaced by two editions, one for Eastern/Central time zones and one for Pacific/Mountain. The reason for the move was due to viewers getting their TV information from other sources like the internet, cable TV channels (like
TV Guide Channel),
Electronic Program Guides,
TiVo, and so on. The new version of
TV Guide hit stores on
October 17,
2005, had
Ty Pennington from
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on the cover. The listings format, now consisted entirely of grids, also changed format to start the week's issue with Monday listings, rather than Sunday listings.
TV Guide is owned by
Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc., which is in turn owned partially by
News Corporation.
For many years, the
Canadian edition of
TV Guide was virtually the same as the US version, right down to the US ads in the color section (prior to the mid-1970s, some Canadian
TV Guide editions were also sold in some border American markets). The only differences were the price (in 1972, the US edition was 15¢, while in Canada, it was 25¢) and the publisher (the "Saturday" listings, featured the disclaimer, "This Canadian magazine is distributed, assembled and prepared by McMurray Publishing Company, Ltd...."). At least eleven editions were available across the country covering the major cities.
Beginning in January 1977, however, the magazine split off on its own, at first using some of the same stories and covers as the US version, but eventually becoming the more distinct magazine it is today, publishing completely different stories, often with a Canadian focus. The magazine, which otherwise uses a similar
logo to that of the American version, is published by
Transcontinental Media. A series of sharp price increases were applied, rising to 30c, 35c, and ultimately close to a dollar per issue.
In 2004, the magazine changed its format from a
digest size, similar to the American version, to a larger format (similar in size to a
comic book). With the change in format came the decision by the magazine to cease printing 24-hour listings; overnight programming is left off in order to focus on more frequently viewed hours.
As of
November 5,
2005, the Canadian
TV Guide was reduced from the six remaining editions to two, one for Eastern Canada and one for Western Canada. This change has been controversial.
After receiving numerous complaints about the new format (one which severely condensed cross-country listings), superficial changes were introduced in the November 26 edition. A year-end double issue for the December 24, 2005 to January 6, 2006 period was entirely in colour and included further scaled back listings. It also included an extensive survey, purportedly to gauge relative interest in the different sections of the magazine. The survey, however, was not intended to determine if the magazine's format switch from regional editions to semi-national editions, should remain.
A petition to protest against the changes can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/TVG2006/
Other countries also publish national TV guides. In the UK, "Radio Times" is probably the most popular. In Germany, there are over 40 different TV guides, some featuring TV and radio listings for the next 2 to 4 weeks ahead.
On the
Seinfeld episode
The Cigar Store Indian, George's dad, Frank, collects the magazine. He enjoys the fall preview editions the most. In 2000, Frank was featured in ads for the Canadian
TV Guide, singing the praises of its new features, including
perfect binding.
In one episode of
Mama's Family,
Vinton Harper reveals that he has been collecting
TV Guides for more than 25 years. He knows off-hand how many times
Mister Ed (
Naomi's favorite TV character) has made the cover: twice.
The Bundys from the TV show
Married... with Children also enjoy reading
TV Guide; in fact, it is their only reading material, especially for Al Bundy.
On the sitcom
The Simpsons,
Homer says the 'Three Rs' are "Reading TV Guide, wRiting to TV Guide... Renewing TV Guide."
In the fifth episode of season 2 of
Hell's Kitchen, the reward for completing the challenge was a photo shoot at
TV Guide.
In an episode of
The X-Files,
Dana Scully (
Gillian Anderson) holds up an issue of
TV Guide to a bunch of mental patients, asking if the person on the cover (
Jay Leno) was the person they claim committed the crime. They all agree he was. (She is holding up a copy of the Canadian edition of
TV Guide. While the show at this point was filmed in Vancouver, this episode was set in the United States.)
*
TV Guide's List of the 50 Best TV Shows of All Time*
TV Guide's 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time*
TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time*
TV Guide (United States)*
TV Guide (Canada)*
TV Guide (UK)
