So long TV Week; Hello new daily listings
The last issue of TV Week, our Saturday guide to the television week ahead, will be delivered May 31. Beginning Saturday, June 7, we will feature expanded listings and expanded hours in the newspaper each day.
We have held out as long as we could with TV Week because we know that some readers still rely on it for their television viewing. But the fate of TV Week reached its tipping point when its readership continued sliding, its cost continued rising and on-screen cable guides grew in popularity.
To help TV watchers affected by this change, we will expand what we offer each day. We will increase the channels listed to 62, the same number in TV Week. We will also expand the hours for which we list programs, from 9 a.m. until midnight. It makes the daily programming grids smaller, which I regret.
We know this change will upset some readers who like the convenience of a weekly list of programs. But that group gets smaller every week. Technology and the marketplace have squeezed TV Week for years. As the number of channels offered on cable ran into the hundreds, the weekly guide simply couldn't keep up. Cable subscribers can get a guide and program description for each channel for days in the future. Others use online services as we provide on GoTriad.com. Finally, many people use the daily primetime listings in the paper.
Meanwhile, our costs to print the TV Week continue to rise. Despite the diminishing audience for the weekly, we kept producing it because delivering a TV book is just one of those things that newspapers do. But we aren't the first to drop it, and we won't be the last. It is a sign of the times.
I have often wondered how newspapers got into the business of promoting the content of a competing medium. I'm sure it was a good idea at the time, as no one else was doing it. Just another reason for people to buy the paper. But in a way, it gives readers a reason to do something other than spend time with the paper. And these days, we don't need to do that.
In exchange for all the years we have promoted television programs, perhaps the television stations will promote what we have in the newspaper to its viewers. ... See how crazy that sounds now? I doubt our friends at WFMY, WGHP and WXII will give that idea much consideration.
Regardless, we hope our beefed up daily listings will be helpful to both the TV Week readers and the people who have always used the program guide in the daily paper.
Comments (5)
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Up here in New York, Channel 1 has a regular daily feature, "In the Papers," in which the anchor points out and summarizes the top stories from several of our daily papers -- and it's definitely a top attraction of the station (along with info on the weather)!
Posted on May 19, 2008 9:47 PM
Thanks, Walter. Yet another difference between NYC and GSO.
Posted on May 20, 2008 1:20 PM
I understand your discontinuing the TV Week because of its cost.
I don't think that your perspective that your newspaper's offering a selection guide to television programming is promoting the competitor's media over your own. In fact I think that they would complement each other if they were used differently. The television news can only give an overall concept of a story, while print media has the ability to do in-depth stories, and should. When I got the paper I would read it, and then I'd watch television, too. You don't really think people who read the paper and look at TV listings won't ever read the paper again, do you?
The diminishing readership of the newspaper has nothing to do with TV Week, but with your newspaper's content and the general change in news coverage and delivery today. Years ago your paper seemed to change and the articles became more simple, hyped and written for short attention spans, like the people who watch E! I quit my subscription in the early 90's for that reason. I will miss the TV Week, the only reason I'd ever get a Sat. paper. I only got the N&R on Sat., and usually from a neighbor who didn't use the TV Week. No I don't have a fancy cable listing on my screen, I don't relish the idea of looking online for TV information, I do like being able to see ahead a week what programs I may be interested in recording or watching.
I've often said I'd be totally happy if the Rhino would just offer a TV listing, so now it's just me and my Rhino. Thanks for helping me go 'cold turkey'.
Posted on May 26, 2008 6:58 PM
Deborah, so if I understand you correctly, you rarely pay for the News & Record, yet complain about its content, content that, presumably, you haven't read since in 10 years?
Posted on May 26, 2008 8:13 PM
i needed a tv book the other day,in danville because i dropped all the bad cable channels so i bought a sat. greensboro paper.surprise i wasted 50 cent for nothing.i don't read your paperi use the tv book and the paper hits the rabbit box. if you were so worried about the on tv guide my don't you shut down the paper and watch cnn.you may tell me its ice cream but i can smell crap when you spread spread it let me help fire about half your money sucking payrole put the guide back quit thying to trick people to buy your. danville has a paper for 75cent on friday with a great tv guide for free right beside your box.
Posted on January 31, 2009 8:10 PM