The New TV Guide

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I’ve picked up the first two issues of the new TV GUIDE and I have to say, it’s
a big improvement in just about every way. There’s far more content — and
livelier, too —  and the listings are much easier to browse. The old TV Guide
had a musty, dull, dated feel…but was comfortable, familiar, and dependable.
While I have some affection for it, I can’t say I miss it. It’s like
having your cranky, but lovable  78-year-old next door neighbor move to
an assisted living facility and a bright, 22-year-old college student with a
porn-star’s surgically-enhanced body moving in and inviting you to her parties.

5 thoughts on “The New TV Guide”

  1. Are you serious, Lee? While I like the added info, I know they are going to spoil way too many shows. They had the tendency to do that in the past, but now it will be come more prevelent. Remember, it hits news stands (and my house) before the shows from the week before air. So if they say character X died on Lost the week before, odds are the episode hasn’t even aired for us mere mortals yet.
    But here’s my real gripe. Using on the TV GUIDE, tell me whats on NBC at noon today. I’ll wait.
    Now I want to know what will be on at 2 PM tomorrow on any station you can get. Again, use only the TV GUIDE. I’ll wait.
    What about movies that are one during the day? There are now no movie listings period.
    You can’t do it. That makes this new “improved” TV GUIDE only useful for prime time. Anyone who wants to watch TV during any other time is out of luck. We have to look up info on line or try to get the info some other place. It’s not nearly as convient as it used to be. It used to tell you what was on TV during the full 24 hour 7 day week it covered. Now, it doesn’t. That makes it unhelpful at best.
    If I had an alternative, I would cancel my subscription in favor of something that actually told me what was on when.
    Sorry for ranting in your comments. Next time, I’ll save it for something I have a strong opinion about. 🙂
    Mark

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  2. So many of the grids had “Various Programs” (or whatever it was) in place of the shows that were supposed to be on that I let my sub lapse. Now I use Yahoo TV. It takes a little customizing, but it works.

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  3. What Mark said.
    I bought* TV Guide for one reason – the tv listings. They are now almost non-existent. If you watch tv at any time other than prime time, forget about finding any useful information. Seeing “Movie” in the grid tells one nothing.
    * And yes, I used the past tense on purpose. After subscribing for over 35 years, both my parents and I have cancelled our subscriptions. Mark, you’d be better off getting the balance of your subscription refunded and using the booklet from the Sunday Times. It’s not as good as the old TV Guide, but it’s a lot better than the new version.
    TV Guide has turned into People magazine with a three-hour program grid.

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  5. The new TV Guide is worthless as a actual guide to TV programming. Not sure what they were trying to do, but I think if they want to do a shallow entertainment mag, then they should have done that and left the listings intact.
    No channel numbers?
    No daytime programming?
    No late night programming?
    So this is a guide to what? Not TV!
    Funny, there use to be a link to “cancel my subscription” on their website, guess what – it’s gone now. Bet they got swamped with cancel requests.
    Folks, here’s TV Guide’s feedback website, use it :
    http://online.tvguide.com/gobig/feedback.asp

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