(I’ve woven in more info…) Add TV Guide to the long list of publications undergoing massive downsizing. 
It’s yet another sign of the shifting fortunes of TV in general along with the downsizing in network pilots and upfronts etc. An insider tells me that editor Ian Birch and the two managing editors Lois Draegin and Steve Sonksy and several others, including the marketing department, got the word this morning they’d be exiting. I heard that Birch, an editor at Heat (that hot tabloid in the UK) didn’t even come in to the building today, while publisher Scott Crystal and a Human Resources henchwoman were “running around handing out the news that TV Guide is getting gutted today.” The timing couldn’t be worse: TV Guide is holding its annual high-profile “Sexiest Stars” party in LA on Thursday.
Crystal just told the staff they will have a new editor in place by end of next week. (Rumors are it may be Debra Birnbaum…)
News Corp dumped TV Guide last fall and the mag moved out of the News Corp building in December. I hear some stockholder meeting by current owner Macrovision is happening today. Word is Macrovision is looking for a new owner for the magazine and, if none is found, the print version could shutter. Supposedly, Macrovision only bought Gemstar-TV Guide for the digital technology. Word is the company will keep the technology and the on-line version of TV Guide and sell the print version which does retain 3.5 million subscribers. But I’m told the print edition had been losing millions every year.
I’m not sad at all. I’m more sad at how TV Guide has fallen from a classic magazine, to just another celebrity rag. It was a sad day when they got rid of the detailed TV listings. Now there’s practically no TV listings. Just tons of celebrity interviews and gossip. What a horrible decline.
Me, too! I was a subscriber for many, many years. When the new format came out, I wrote them and threatened to cancel my subscription! Then I did cancel! I HTE the new (well not new anymore) magazine. Just another cheap (expensive) gossip tabloid. I used to love when the old one showed up in my mailbox each week. I’d look through to see what was on and do the crossword, and then I’d read some of the articles. Now it is just simply crap. So sad. I miss the old days for so many reasons :(
While I feel bad for people losing their jobs, I didn’t even know TV Guide was still being published. Shows they haven’t exactly been burning up the shelf-space in stores at least in my area.
Why would people pay when they could get the same info in a weekly supplement with their newspaper, or just flick over to the channel the cable company provides that tells you what’s coming on?
TVG went to hell a couple of years ago. While I still get it, I have been waiting for the sub to expire. Impossible to understand listings, no info, and for a few years just a shill rag for Fox programs.
I remember a time when getting TV Guide was something to look forward to. It was a very enjoyable experience to take the time and thoroughly peruse all the publication had to offer, leafing through those pages, coming upon gems of old TV movies and repeats of shows you wouldn’t otherwise have known were coming up. It made television your own personal adventure.
Of course, this was back when everything to do with the entertainment industry didn’t have to be synergized.
Nowadays, arguably, the kind of information TV Guide used to give us is available for free at sites like futoncritic.com, and even more up-to-date. But still. Getting cozy on the couch, studying what the week had to offer in television.. they were good times. I’ll definitely miss you, TV Guide.
I feel the same way! I miss the old magazine so much. I cancelled my subscription the minute they changed it and have not so much as opened one while standing in the grocery line since. The new format is not my cup of tea. There were plenty of gossip magazines out there. We did not need another one.
Me, too :(
I miss throwing my TV Guide at my cat. When they enlarged it it was over for me.
the Canadian print version of TV Guide stoped publishing about 5 years ago. With so many TV listings available online, who really needs it? I get all mine from Zap2It.com
At least the $8 million dollars they shelled out for Joan Rivers and her no talent daughter Melissa was money well spent!
TV Guide’s Canadian edition, sold off by the Annenburgs to a Canuck publisher eons ago, shuttered its print issues last year. IT still maintains a website so we can keep track of what hockey game is on the tube and when the SCTV reruns are on.
But the magazine looks like a work of genius compared to how terrible the TV channel is. Even Style looks better.
I have to agree, it has become nothing more than a tawdry gossip rag.
As far as I’m concerned it would be an improvement if they cleaned house and just stuck to the basics.
Hmmm, well I’ve never been a print subscriber, but I’m a slave to their web site and scoop news columns when I need a TV fix. I hope that isn’t being hit by this.
Sorry ProgGrrl, but the site and magazine are so closely tied together that there is bound to be changes.
TV Guide — fifteen cents for so long it was the end of an era when that price was raised.
Buying the Fall Preview issue was an event. “TV’s Christmas.”
I guess Annenberg could see more of the future than the rest of us and sold it at the right moment. But after it changed hands, it was never the same.
Hell, it wasn’t really the same after Cleveland Amory left!
I gave up my subscription to TV Guide ages ago, because it no longer had the detailed listings, and really had become nothing more than a rag of the latest “celebrity” du jour. The last time I saw it, it even talked more about movies than TV. I use my cable system’s detailed listings, but I miss, as Ella says above, checking the upcoming week for programs, reviewing the new offerings.
There used to be a time when TV Guide’s print version had the best TV news articles. This was when the rag was of a smaller size. You knew that the story on the cover would be a great read inside. But that has been long gone.
As for it getting TV listings right, hell…the networks can’t even stick to what they say so why should expect the TV rags to get it right?
I remember TV Guide as event reading in the 70s when I was a kid. I’d get in trouble for doing the crossword puzzle in the back, which my aunt saw as her territory and privilege. The editorial content was great: on-the-set reports of that week’s event programming, the great full-page ads for TV movies and the spotlight sections. It was the ‘Ent. Weekly’ of its day. Where else could you get a star’s POV of their firing (Lauren Tewes fired from ‘Love Boat’)or the mood of a TV set? The new larger-size format, confusing listings and slavish devotion to dancing/singing reality shows and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’/ ‘Ugly Betty’ covers, etc., sucks. It’s a shame. It was a great magazine. I wish the staff well since none of these layoffs are easy and it’s usually management’s fault.
I see Michael ausiello had just announced his leaving for EW, any chance of an update on the slow death of tvguide?
It’s partially the downfall of the tv industry, but separate from that magazines are doing awful in general. Most people get all their info online. The magazine have taken an awful beating because of that.
If they’d offer the old format again with all its good articles and actual listings, crossword puzzles, etc. I’d subscribe again. But they just don’t seem to care.
TV Guide jumped the shark when (pick one):
1) It no longer had the staples binding it
2) It dropped the “Teletype: Hollywood” and “Teletype: NY” features
3) It dropped the movie listings in the back for local channels
4) It included crappy “special edition” X-Files posters unsuitable for lining the bird cage
5) It got more expensive than Juicy Fruit
6) We were supposed to want to buy “all 5 special covers” of some crap
7) It first used the phrase “jumped the shark”…
I wish tv guide would go back to the smaller size . I was thinking maybe we should write tvguide and say we want old mag back.
I wrote when they were first changing it, and they didn’t care. After I cancelled my subscription, they still didn’t care. With all the negative comments here, you’d think they’d have the brains to bring back the old version, but obviously, they are just stupid. No wonder they are going out of business. Hey, TV Guide, no one likes your “new” gossip magazine! We want the OLD TV Guide back!
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I have loved TV Guide since I was 12 years old.
I looked forward to it each week.
a few years ago it changed format.
How sad