golfrewind.com

I subscribe to TV Guide... or at least I did until I canceled my subscription earlier this evening. As you may know, the issue that's hitting mailboxes and newsstands right now (i.e., the issue that covers Oct 17-23) is the first issue in its new format. Now it's as big as People magazine. In fact, TV Guide seems to be be going after a People-type audience, with page after page of photo's and light stories about celebrities. Trying to stay "relevant," I read on Yahoo.
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/ap/20051011/112908888000.html

Well, I ain't buying it... literally. Sure, I believe that TV Guide is trying to serve America's seemingly insatiable appetite for inconsequential fluff... I mean, trying to stay "relevant." But in the process they've gutted their publication of its chief value as an easy-to-consult guide to what's on the tube tonight. The listings are now deep in the back of the mag. If you're looking for all your options at 8 PM, for example, you go to the "Prime Time" page for that day, where you'll find only a brief description of the episode. If you want more info about the episode, you have to flip to the "Highlights" page for that day, where you'll find only a slightly longer (and equally coy) description of the episode... or you'll find nothing at all. And if you're looking for details on local programming, good luck! I live in the Midwest; my issue uses Eastern (not Central) time for all broadcasts. OK, it's not hard to do the math, but it's one more irritation. And how am I supposed to get this full-size mag into the little wicker basket on my coffee table that is the perfect size for the remote, the cordless phone, and the old (small-size) TV Guide?

In short: They've abandoned their core purpose. They forgot who they are!

When I called the 800 number (a pretty cool voice-activated system, I must admit), I was greeted by the voice of its editor-in-chief, touting the virtues of the new TV Guide. Dream on, bub. When I told the system I wanted to cancel, it countered with an offer to extend my subscription by 8 issues, free of charge. Sure thing, pal. I carefully intoned "No!" and was assured I'll be sent a refund for the unused portion of my subscription.

I hope TV Guide hasn't gone to oversize refund checks....

Well, I've never been a subscriber to the TV guide, since the satellite system program guide is (somewhat) useful for seeing what's on (I can never decide what to watch until the TV is already on ). However, here at school, I have the TV guide website program list set up to the provider I have, then put that in my favorites and I can check it out any time I wish, presuming that I don't delete my cookies in between then. You might want to give it a try...better than nothing anyway.

I've never subscribed to TV guide, or look at the guide in the paper. Maybe this could explain why my remote control no longer has numbers on it.

Boy, JimSomebody, you're really upset with TV Guide!

We have always received a TV Week tabloid-sized magazine free with the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, whose program listings were more than adequate, until a few years ago when they downsized the listings to what you now see in the "new" TV Guide. At that time, we subscribed to TV Guide to get the detail on programs that we had lost with the Inquirer's cost-cutting guide. Over these past few years, the program listings in TV Guide have gradually shrunk so much that they now offer very little more than the free guide in the paper. And now, they offer nothing more! Well, the grids are in color and the paper is shinier. Even before this latest format change, I had decided not to renew our subscription.

I do understand their position that cable systems are now providing on-screen guides that present program details on hundreds of available channels--too many for TV Guide to ever list. However, my wife just hates when we're watching a program and I start checking out what's on next and the blue band with program listings pops up at the bottom of the screen! And then an even larger band appears when I want a description of the show!

Cable is supposedly making TV Guide obsolete, but the convenience of that little book that fit perfectly in my remote caddy will never be duplicated by on-screen guides that interfere with my view of the program currently playing.

Just face it, Jim. We grew up in the "Golden Age" of television, with a TV Guide in one hand and a remote in the other. (Well, really, I predate remotes by quite a bit.) Today, one of those hands has to be free for the cell phone, so the Guide has to go!

Man, I hope they never mess with Readers Digest. That might really get all of your Depends in a bunch. We could be in for a real AARP uprising the likes of which the world has never seen.

OK, folks, I'm better now. A little.

'card: Thanks for the suggestion to go online for program listings. Not my natural inclination (talking to a geezer, ya know!); we're going to start using the TV Week tabloid that comes with our Sunday StarTribune. (BTW, our newspaper changed its look this week, too. Stop messin' with me, world!)

Pistol: Pretty nice joke! Made my wife smile when I told her.

v-man: As usual, you are the piercing voice of clarity. Yep, the Golden Age of Television... those were the days. Give me a black-and-white Zenith and a Swanson dinner on a TV tray...

waz: See us and see your future. Be afraid, be very afraid...

I'll make sure that I don't wear my Depends on the day I stand on your grave.

Jim, I actually read something about that, where TV Guide is just about in the toilet, because nobody under the age of 40 reads it. It is a new format/style aimed at the younger crowd, as you discovered.

They figure guys your age will be dead soon, and need to go after the younger ones.

I couldn't resist.

The only way the younger generation will ever read it, is if it's encoded in the "cheat sheets" attached to their favorit video game.

I've also found it easier to just flip through the stations than to read that "menu screen" that is on one of those stations.
Ditto for the screen that pops up and blocks off pretty much everything on the screen.
No patience.

TV Guide? We don't need no stinkin' TV Guides! That's why a real man has a remote!

I haven't used a paper "guide" since the days of the old cable channel changer that had three rows of keys, with the manual row selector. They had one button for each channel, arranged in 3 rows.

You could surf, if you had a 25 foot cord between the box and the TV.

Thank You DirecTV!!!!!!!!

TV Guides are for the literate.

Remote? So THAT'S what I should claim them as on my tax returns.

That's what i should do, :nodsmiley nickname all my kids after my favorite stations and just yell out: "ESPN"...or "GOLF CHANNEL"......

"Traffic Report" may not go over well, but someone's gotta have it......

Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Um, well, from the perspective of geologic time, we will all be gone in a mere microsecond. :nodsmiley In fact, I am not convinced that our entire species will survive its own "intelligence" for more than an instant or two. That said, sure TV Guide, go make yourself "relevant."

And oh... the dumbing-down of TV Guide (you wouldn't think such a thing possible, but their marketing geniuses found a way) doesn't say much for their opinion of the younger market.

Seriously, Virg... Funny line. Made me laugh out loud. Thanks.

Well, if you place all of geologic time into a year, every one of us (I made it 80 years, meaning the longest lived GR member lives 80 more years...reasonable to assume one of our youngsters here will live into their mid-90s) will be gone within about 1/2 a second. Human beings (going only Homo sapiens here, not the other pre-historic hominids) have conclusively been around for 911 seconds, based on that time frame...do the math and it becomes painfully obvious that we've already had our 15 minutes of fame.