Prototype The prototype of what would become
TV Guide magazine was developed by Lee Wagner (1910–1993), who was the circulation director of
MacFadden Publications in
New York City in the 1930s – and later, by the time of the predecessor publication's creation, for
Cowles Media Company – distributing magazines focusing on movie celebrities. In 1948, he printed New York City area listings magazine
The TeleVision Guide, which was first released on local newsstands on June 14 of that year. Silent film star
Gloria Swanson, who then starred of the short-lived
variety series The Gloria Swanson Hour, appeared on the cover of the first issue. Wagner later began publishing regional editions of
The TeleVision Guide for
New England and the
Baltimore–
Washington area. Five years later, he sold the editions to
Walter Annenberg, who folded it into his publishing and broadcasting company
Triangle Publications, but remained as a consultant for the magazine until 1963.
Annenberg/Triangle era , the younger child of
Lucille Ball (seen at upper right inset) The first national issue of
TV Guide was released on April 3, 1953, with a circulation of 1,560,000 copies in ten U.S. cities. The inaugural cover featured a photograph of
Lucille Ball's newborn son,
Desi Arnaz, Jr., with a smaller inset photo of Ball in the corner under the headline: "Lucy's $50,000,000 baby". The magazine was printed in
digest size, a format it kept for 52 years. From its debut until July 2–8, 1954, listings ran Friday through Thursday. The July 9–16 issue ran Friday through Friday. Beginning July 17–23, 1954, issues ran Saturday through Friday, a format kept until April 2004.
TV Guide grew out of Triangle Publications’ purchase of several local listings magazines, including
TV Forecast (first published May 9, 1948, in
Chicago, the first continuously published television listings magazine),
TV Digest (in
Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh, originally called
The Local Televiser), and the New York-based
Television Guide (renamed
TV Guide on March 18, 1950). Each of these cities became part of
TV Guide's initial rollout. The launch was an immediate success, but circulation soon declined even as the magazine expanded to Pittsburgh,
Rochester,
Detroit,
Cleveland and
San Francisco. By mid-August 1953, sales had fallen 200,000 below the first issue. The September 4–10, 1953, "Fall Preview" issue reversed the trend, selling 1,746,327 copies. Circulation then grew steadily, and by the 1960s
TV Guide was the most widely read magazine in the United States. The cover price was 15¢ (equivalent to $ in ; by , it was $4.99). In addition to
subscriptions,
TV Guide was sold in grocery store checkout lanes nationwide. Until the 1980s, feature stories were also advertised in
television commercials. Under Triangle,
TV Guide became recognized as the leading authority on television, publishing articles—most in the color section—by staff and contributing writers. The
TV Guide logo evolved with the television screen itself. It shifted to a
widescreen style in September 2003 and a flatscreen style in September 2016. Slightly different versions are used for the magazine and for the CBS-managed digital properties. Early logos had backgrounds in various colors until the red background became standard in the 1960s, though special editions sometimes varied. The magazine was first based in a small Philadelphia office, then moved in the late 1950s to larger headquarters in
Radnor,
Pennsylvania. The facility housed management, editors, production staff, subscription processors, and a computer system cataloging every show and movie. Printing of the national color section—containing articles and reviews—was done at Triangle's Gravure Division plant, next to the
Inquirer Building on North
Broad Street. This section was then sent to regional printers to be combined with local listings. Triangle Publications also owned
The Philadelphia Inquirer, the
Philadelphia Daily News, ten radio and six TV stations (including
WPVI-TV in Philadelphia,
WTNH in
New Haven, Connecticut, and
KFSN-TV in
Fresno, California), as well as
The Daily Racing Form,
The Morning Telegraph,
Seventeen, and cable interests. WFIL-TV, under Triangle, launched
American Bandstand, which made
Dick Clark a major television personality. Triangle sold its Philadelphia newspapers to
Knight Newspapers in 1969 and its broadcast stations in the early 1970s to
Capital Cities Communications (later acquired by
ABC). It retained
TV Guide,
Seventeen, and
The Daily Racing Form. For its first 52 years, program listings in ‘‘TV Guide’’ appeared in a “log” format: a text-based list of programs organized by start time and channel. This remained the sole method of presenting program information until national listings were introduced in 2005. When
prime time grids were later added, the log became the primary, and in its final two years the secondary, display method. The log format allowed full program titles and included synopses for movies and most shows. Most entries also listed program genres (and for national news programs, the
anchor) after the title. Running time was included only if a program lasted at least one hour (later, 35 minutes), shown in hours and minutes within the synopsis. Channel numbers appeared at the start of each entry in a round icon (“bullet”), later modified into a TV screen shape resembling the ‘‘TV Guide’’ logo. In most editions, stations in the immediate coverage area were shown with a white numeral inside a black TV-shaped bullet; stations from neighboring markets that could also be received locally were shown with a black numeral inside a white bullet outlined in black. For example, in the
San Francisco edition, San Francisco and Oakland stations appeared in white-on-black bullets, while stations from
Sacramento or
Salinas/
Monterey were listed in black-on-white bullets. A single listing could begin with three or more bullets if multiple local and nearby stations aired the same program (often different affiliates of the same network). See “
Listings section” in the “Editions” section below for more detail. Initially, most programs in the log had brief synopses, except for local and national newscasts or certain shows. As more
broadcast stations and
cable channels were added, space limits required changes: detailed synopses were generally reserved for prime-time series and
specials plus movies on broadcast television. Shorter synopses were used for out-of-market broadcasts and select cable channels, while most other programs were listed with only a title and basic details (such as genre or running time). Black-and-white ads for upcoming programs—first for broadcast stations and later for cable—were also included. These ads featured local airtimes and station information, with networks producing most national ads and local stations producing their own for newscasts or other shows, often using their distinctive logos (such as the ABC “Circle 7”). Ads for general products and services, like those in other magazines, also appeared. A regular feature of the listings section was "Close-Up", usually a half-page segment, which provided expanded reviews of select programs airing each day (various editions of "Close-Up" were eventually used for different types of programs, from premieres of new series to shows airing on cable). Parades, classic movies, sports match-ups and political events could all merit Close-ups. Over time, other regular and recurring features (most of them television-related) were included alongside the listings including "Insider" (a television news and interview section in the lead pages of the color section); "Cheers and Jeers" (a critique page about various aspects of television programming); "Hits and Misses" (featuring brief reviews of select programs in the coming week, rated on a score from 0 to 10); "Guidelines" (a half-page daily section featuring highlights of five or six programs of interest); horoscopes; recaps of the previous week's storylines on network daytime
soap operas; a page reviewing new
home video (and later,
DVD) releases; dedicated pages that respectively listed select sporting events, children's programs and "four-star" movies being broadcast during that week; and crossword puzzles. Although its issues usually focus on different television-related stories week to week,
TV Guide also incorporates recurring issues that appear a few times each year, most notably the "Fall Preview" (an issue featured since the magazine's inaugural year in 1953, which features reviews of new series premiering during the fall television season), "Returning Favorites" (first published in 1996, featuring previews of series renewed from the previous television season returning for the upcoming fall schedule), "Winter Preview" (first published in 1994 and later known as the "(year) TV Preview" from 2006 to 2009, featuring previews of
midseason series) and "The Best Children's Shows on TV" (first published in 1989 and later renamed the "Parents' Guide to Children's Television" in 1990, and finally as the "Parent's Guide to Kids' TV" in 1993, featuring stories and reviews on family-oriented programs). Icons beyond channel bullets first appeared around 1956, with rectangular labels “SPECIAL” and “COLOR” for
specials and
color broadcasts. In May 1969, all icons were redesigned: the channel bullets changed from
Futura to
Helvetica, and TV-shaped bullets with a “C” identified color programs. As color became standard, beginning in August 1972 programs in
black and white were instead marked “BW.” In September 1981, listings began identifying shows with
captions or on-screen
sign language interpretation. Listings also noted deviations from routine, such as “[Gunsmoke is pre-empted],” “(last episode of the series),” “Debut:” or “Special.” Until the 1970s, double or triple feature movie blocks were listed under the start time of the first film (“MOVIE—Double Feature”) with numbered bullets for each title. After 1970, each film received its own time entry. Daily listings extended past midnight until the last station signed off, sometimes as late as 4:00 a.m. The next day’s schedule could begin as early as 5:00 a.m. ‘‘TV Guide’’ emphasized original copywriting, often based on screenings and interviews, rather than reusing material from broadcasters.
Addition of cable listings The advent of cable television would become hard on
TV Guide. Cable channels began to be listed in the magazine in 1980 or 1981, depending on the edition; the channels listed also differed with the corresponding edition. Regional and national
superstations available on cable systems in the designated market of many editions were the only cable channels listed initially as well as, in certain markets, over-the-air subscription services transmitted over local
independent stations (such as
ONTV); local subscription television services were often listed as "STV Programming" or "Subscription Television" for the channel carrying the service, with the service listed separately or, in some editions, not at all. Cable-originated channels – such as
HBO,
CNN (both of which the magazine originally promoted mainly in full-page advertisements), the CBN Cable Network (now renamed to
Freeform, which is now owned by Disney), the
Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS, later succeeded by
A&E through its 1984 merger with The Entertainment Channel) and Viacom's
Nickelodeon – were added gradually between the winter of late 1981 and the first half of 1982, depending on the edition. To save page space,
TV Guide incorporated a grid (a rowed display of listings for programs scheduled to air during the evening hours each night, primarily organized by channel) into the listings in September 1981, which was slotted at a random page within each day's afternoon listings. The grid originated as a single-page feature that provided a summary of programs airing during prime time (from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. or 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. depending on the start of prime time within a given
time zone) on the stations mentioned in the corresponding edition; by 1985, it was expanded to a two-page section – which began to take up roughly three-quarters of the two adjoining pages on which it was placed – that included programs airing during the
early access and late fringe periods (from 5:00 to 11:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. local time), with the beginning and end of the magazine-defined prime time daypart (between 7:30 and 11:00 p.m. or between 6:30 and 10:00 p.m. local time on Monday through Saturdays, and between 7:00 and 11:00 p.m. or between 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. local time on Sundays) delineated by a thicker border. Channels listed in the grid were organized by broadcast stations, basic cable channels, and premium channels. In August 1982, the magazine expanded its coverage of cable programming with the introduction of two feature sections. The first, the "CablePay Section", was a separate color insert that followed the Friday listings, which provided highlights of programs airing on the national basic and premium cable channels (this feature was discontinued in 1985, at which time, cable program highlights were folded into the "Guidelines" feature). The second feature, the "Cable and Pay-TV Movie Guide" (later renamed the "Pay-TV Movie Guide" in 1984 and "Premium Channels Movie Guide" in 1997), initially followed the "CablePay" insert before being moved to the pages immediately following the Friday listings in May 1985, resulting in the national section – which had been cordoned into two sections, both preceding and following the local section – being consolidated into the first half of the pages comprising each issue. The "Movie Guide", which encompassed the last pages of each edition, provided summaries of films scheduled to air over the next one to two weeks on the cable channels included in both the log
and grid listings (excluding those featured exclusively in the grids) as well as a first-page summary of the films scheduled to premiere that week (arranged by channel and sub-categorized by title). As the years went on, more cable channels were added into the listings of each edition. To help offset this, the May 11–17, 1985, issue introduced a smaller Helvetica font for the log, along with some other cosmetic changes; in particular, a show's length began to be listed after the show's title instead of at the end of its synopsis. That issue also saw advertising for local stations featured in the corresponding edition be restricted to certain special events, with most program promotions being restricted to those for national broadcast and cable networks.
News Corporation and Gemstar eras On August 7, 1988, Triangle Publications was sold to the News America Corporation arm of
News Corporation for $3 billion, one of the largest media acquisitions of the time and the most expensive publication transaction at the time. The November 3–9, 1990, issue saw the addition of
VCR Plus+ codes in some of the magazine's regional editions, in order for users with devices incorporating the technology – which was developed by eventual
TV Guide parent Gemstar International Group Ltd. – to input into their VCRs to automatically record television programs. (Two-digit PlusCodes corresponding to the channel airing the program that a user wished to record were listed after each channel in the channel directory page; one- to eight-digit codes for individual programs were listed in the log listings section following the title of each program.) The PlusCodes expanded to all local editions beginning with the September 14–20, 1991, issue. The September 12–18, 1992, issue saw the addition of bullet icons identifying
colorized versions of older feature films. On March 7, 1996,
TV Guide launched the iGuide, originally developed by the News Corporation-
MCI joint venture Delphi Internet Service Corp. as a
web portal, which featured more comprehensive television listings data than those offered by the magazine (with information running two weeks in advance of the present date), as well as news content,
TV Guide editorial content and a search feature called CineBooks, which allowed users to access detailed information on about 30,000 film titles. Later that year, content from the print publication was added to iGuide as well as content from News Corporation's other media properties. On January 13, 1997, shortly before MCI bowed out of the venture, iGuide was relaunched as the TV Guide Entertainment Network (TVGEN), which was renamed TV Guide Online in 2002. The refocused site covered television, music, movies and sports (with content concerning the latter sourced from
Fox Sports), along with wire news and features from
Reuters,
Daily Variety and
The New York Post, free e-mail updates for registered users, and a chat room that was developed to accommodate 5,000 users simultaneously. Additional changes to the listings took place with the September 14–20, 1996 edition of the print publication. Starting with that issue, program titles switched from being displayed in all-uppercase to being shown in a mixed case,
Franklin Gothic typeface, film titles – which had previously been displayed within the film description – began appearing before a film's synopsis in an italicized format (replacing the generic "MOVIE" header that had been used to identify films since the magazine's inception), and children's programs that were compliant with the
Children's Television Act of 1990 began to be designated by a circular "
E/I" icon. In addition,
infomercials (which had been designated under the boilerplate title "COMMERCIAL PROGRAM[S]" until 1994, and "INFORMERCIAL[S]" thereafter) ceased being listed in the magazine during time periods in which stations aired them. (Time-brokered programs continued to be listed in the magazine, but were primarily restricted to religious programming.) Replacing the text identifiers that had been included within the film synopses, theatrically released films also began to be identified by a black-and-white boxed "M" symbol, accompanied depending on the film by its
star rating (a formula, on a scale of one [for "poor"] to four [for "excellent"], based on a consensus of reviews from leading film critics, the quality of the film's cast and director, and the film's box office revenue and award wins). Movie icons also were appropriated to identify direct-to-video (marked as "M→V") or made-for-TV (marked as "M→T") releases, which were not assigned star ratings. Beginning with the January 25–31, 1997, issue, the log listings began incorporating content ratings for programs assigned through the newly implemented
TV Parental Guidelines system (the system's content ratings were subsequently added upon their introduction in October 1998). News Corporation sold
TV Guide to the United Video Satellite Group, parent company of
Prevue Networks, on June 11, 1998, for $800 million and 60 million shares of stock worth an additional $1.2 billion (this followed an earlier merger attempt between the two companies in 1996 that eventually fell apart). Following the sale, reports suggested that
TV Guide would remove program listings from the magazine, shifting them entirely to its new sister cable network Prevue Channel, which would be rebranded as a result of United Video's purchase of
TV Guide magazine; News Corporation executives later stated that listings information would remain part of the magazine. That year, United Video acquired TVSM Inc. (publishers of competing listings guides
Total TV and
The Cable Guide) in a $75 million all-cash acquisition; as a result,
TV Guide merged with
Total TV, and began printing a version of the magazine in the latter magazine's full-size format (while retaining the original digest size version) effective with the July 11, 1998, issue. Because most cable systems published their own listing magazine reflecting their channel lineup, and now had a separate guide channel or an
electronic program guide that can be activated by remote and provide the same information in a more detailed manner – with additional competition coming in the late 1990s from websites that also specialize in providing detailed television program information (such as TVGuide.com, then jointly operated with
TV Guide Magazine, and
Zap2It), a printed listing of programming in a separate magazine became less valuable. The sheer amount and diversity of cable television programming made it hard for
TV Guide to provide listings of the extensive array of programming that came directly over the cable system.
TV Guide also could not match the ability of the
cable box to store personalized listings. Nevertheless, beginning with the September 12–18, 1998, issue, the magazine added several new channels to many of its editions, including those that had previously been mentioned only in a foreword on the channel lineup page as well as those that were available mainly on
digital cable and satellite; although most of these newly added channels were placed within the prime time grids, only a few (such as the nature-oriented
Animal Planet and
MSNBC) were also incorporated into the log listings. Features in the magazine were also revamped with the additions of "The Robins Report" (a review column by writer J. Max Robins), "Family Page" (featuring reviews of family-oriented programs) and picks of select classic films airing that week, as well as the removal of the "Guidelines" feature in the listings section in favor of the new highlight page "Don't Miss" (listing choice programs selected by the magazine's staff for the coming week) in the national color section. Listings for movies within the log also began identifying
made-for-TV and
direct-to-video films, as well as quality ratings on a scale of one to four stars (signifying movies that have received "poor" to "excellent" reviews). In 1999, the magazine began hosting the
TV Guide Awards, an awards show (which was telecast on Fox) honoring television programs and actors, with the winners being chosen by
TV Guide subscribers through a nominee ballot inserted in the magazine; the telecast was discontinued after the 2001 event. The July 17–23, 1999, edition saw the evening grids be scaled down to the designated prime time hours, 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. (or 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.) Monday through Saturdays and 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. (or 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.) on Sundays, to complement the descriptive log listings for those time periods; this also allowed the grids to be contained to a single page in certain editions that provided listings for more than 20 cable channels. On October 5, 1999,
Gemstar International Group Ltd., the maker of the
VCR Plus+ device and schedule system (whose channel and program codes for
VCRs using the system for timed recordings were incorporated into the magazine's listings in 1988), and which incidentally was partially owned by News Corporation, purchased United Video Satellite Group; the two companies had previously been involved in a legal battle over the
intellectual property rights for their respective interactive program guide systems, VCR Plus+ and
TV Guide On Screen, that began in 1994. That month,
TV Guide debuted a 16-page insert into editions in 22 markets with large Latino populations titled
TV Guide en Español, which provided programming information from national
Spanish language networks (such as
Univision and
Telemundo) as well as special sections with reviews of the week's notable programs. The magazine discontinued the insert in March 2000 due to difficulties resulting from confusion by advertisers over its marketing as "the first weekly Spanish-language magazine", despite its structure as an insert within the main
TV Guide publication. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of
TV Guide as a national magazine, in 2002, the magazine published six special issues: • "TV We'll Always Remember" (April 6–12): Our Favorite Stars Share Fifty Years of Memories, Moments and Magic" • "
50 Greatest Shows of All Time" (May 4–10): The Ultimate List of the 50 Best TV Series. (Just Try to Guess What's No. 1!)" •
Note: This was the only one to be presented on television itself (in the form of a two-hour special) and referenced in the book
TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television, considering the magazine's purpose to present weekly listings of regularly scheduled series. • "Our 50 Greatest Covers of All Time (June 15–21): Fabulous Photos of Your Favorite Shows and Stars Plus: Amazing Behind-the-Scenes Stories" • "50 Worst Shows of All Time (July 20–26): Not Just Bad! Really Awful – And We Love Them That Way!" • "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time (August 3–9): Funny! Clever! Drawn to perfection! They're the tops in toons!" • "50 Sexiest Stars of All Time (September 28–October 4): Charisma, Curves, Confidence, Charm! Could We Be Having Any More Fun?" By 2003, the number of cable channels that were only listed in the grids expanded, with the addition of channels such as BBC America,
Soapnet and the
National Geographic Channel (some editions also featured a limited number of broadcast stations – either in-market, out-of-market or both – exclusively in the grids); conversely, sister cable network
TV Guide Channel (whose listings were added to the magazine after the Gemstar purchase) was relegated from the log listings to the grids in most editions. From its inception until 2003,
TV Guide had offered listings for the entire week, 24 hours a day. Numerous changes to the local listings took place beginning with the June 21, 2003 issue – in just a few select markets, when the 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday listings were condensed down to four grids: these ran from 5:00 to 8:00 a.m., 8:00 to 11:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. If programming differed from one weekday to the next, the generic descriptor "Various Programs" was listed. The weekday grid maintained day-to-day listings for certain cable channels (primarily
movie channels as well as a limited number of basic cable channels such as
Lifetime,
The History Channel and NBC-owned
USA Network), which were organized separately from the other channels. These changes became permanent in all
TV Guide editions beginning with the September 13, 2003, "Fall Preview" issue. Other changes were made to the magazine beginning with the June 21 issue in select markets and the 2003 "Fall Preview" issue elsewhere. A half-page daily prime time highlights section featuring the evening's notable shows, movies and sports events – similar to the former "Guidelines" feature – was re-added to the listings section; a full-page "Weekday Highlights" page was also added featuring guest and topical information for the week's
daytime talk and
morning shows as well as picks for movies airing during the day on broadcast and cable channels. In addition, while log listings continued in use for prime time listings, program synopses were added to the grids and log, as well as a "
NEW" indicator for first-run episodes, replacing the "(Repeat)" indicator in the log's synopses. The "Premium Channels Movie Guide" was also restructured as "The Big Movie Guide", with film listings being expanded to include those airing on all broadcast networks and cable channels featured in each edition (as well as some that were not listed in a particular local edition), as well as movies that were available on
pay-per-view (page references to the films included in this section were also incorporated into the prime time grids and log listings). Beginning in January 2004, the midnight to 5:00 a.m. listings (as well as the Saturday and Sunday 5:00 to 8:00 a.m. listings) ceased to include any broadcast stations outside of the edition's home market, leaving only program information for stations within the home market and for cable channels. The magazine's format was changed beginning with the April 11, 2004, issue to start the week's listings in each issue on Sunday (the day in which television listings magazines supplemented in
newspapers traditionally began each week's listings information), rather than Saturday. In July 2004, the overnight listings were removed entirely, replaced by a grid that ran from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. that included only the broadcast stations in each edition's home market and a handful of cable channels. It also listed a small selection of late-night movies airing on certain channels. The time period of the listings in the daytime grids also shifted from starting at 5:00 a.m. and ending at 5:00 p.m. to running from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. By this point, the log listings were restricted to programs airing from 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. In early 2005, more channels were added to the prime time and late-night grids.
Format overhaul and conversion to national listings On July 26, 2005, Gemstar-TV Guide announced that
TV Guide would abandon its longtime digest size format and begin printing as a larger full-size national magazine that would offer more stories and fewer program listings. All 140 local editions were eliminated, being replaced by two editions covering the time zones within the
contiguous United States: one for the
Eastern and
Central time zones, and one for the
Pacific and
Mountain time zones (which had existed separately from the local editions prior to the change, although their distribution was primarily limited to
hotels). The change in format was attributed to the increase in the
internet, cable television channels (like TV Guide Network), electronic program guides and
digital video recorders as the sources of choice for viewers' program listings. The new version of
TV Guide went on sale on October 17, 2005, and featured
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host
Ty Pennington on the cover. The listings format, now consisting entirely of grids, also changed to start the listings in each week's issue on Monday rather than Sunday. As a result of the elimination of the local editions, broadcast stations were replaced by broadcast network schedules with the description "
Local Programming" being used to denote time periods in which
syndicated, locally produced or
paid programs would air instead of network shows. In September 2006,
TV Guide launched a redesigned
website, with expanded original editorial and user-generated content not included in the print magazine. On December 22, 2006,
TV Guide introduced the magazine's first ever two-week edition. The edition, which featured star chef
Rachael Ray on the cover, was issued for the period from
December 25, 2006 to January 7, 2007. In early 2008, the Monday through Friday daytime and daily late night grids were eliminated from the listings section, and the television highlights section was compressed into a six-page review of the week, rather than the previous two pages for each night. By 2007,
TV Guides circulation had decreased to less than three million copies from a peak of almost 20 million in 1970. With the $2.8 billion acquisition of Gemstar-TV Guide by
Macrovision on May 2, 2008, that company, which purchased the former mostly to take advantage of their lucrative and profitable VCR Plus and electronic program guide
patents, stated it wanted to sell both the magazine and TV Guide Network, along with the company's
horse racing channel
TVG Network to other parties.
TV Guide Talk On May 18, 2005,
TV Guide Talk, a weekly
podcast that was available to download for free, was launched. The podcast was headlined by
TV Guide reporter/personality
Michael Ausiello, and was co-hosted by his colleagues at the magazine, Matt Webb Mitovich, Angel Cohn, Daniel Manu and
Maitland McDonagh. Each episode featured commentary from TV Guide staff on the week's entertainment news stories, television programs, and film releases, as well as occasional interviews with actors, producers, and executives. On April 4, 2008 (following Ausiello's move to
Entertainment Weekly), it was announced that the podcast would be ending, and the final episode (Episode No. 139) was released on April 10, 2008.
TV Guide Talk podcasts were released every Friday afternoon and averaged an hour in length. They featured the participants discussing and commenting on the past week in television and the entertainment industry in general. The beginning of each podcast was devoted to in-depth discussion on the week's biggest new story in the entertainment industry, whether it be a television program or something outside the scope of television show or movie (such as the
Academy Awards or the
Emmys). The middle part was devoted to discussion and commentary on individual shows. The podcast emphasized programs that tend to have a large online following even if that following is unnecessarily reflected in the programs' Nielsen rating. Examples include
American Idol,
Heroes,
Lost,
Survivor,
Gilmore Girls,
Veronica Mars, and
Project Runway (the latter three being examples a low-rated shows which nevertheless have sizable online followings). Each podcast also ended with a weekly review of that weekend's new theatrical releases.
OpenGate Capital era On October 13, 2008, Macrovision sold the money-losing magazine (which was reportedly posting revenue losses of $20 million per year by that point) to
Beverly Hills-based equity fund
OpenGate Capital for $1, and a $9.5 million loan at 3% interest. As part of the sale, however, Macrovision retained ownership of the companion website – which was then sold to equity firm
One Equity Partners for $300 million – which severed all editorial connections between the magazine and website, including the end of critic Matt Roush's presence on TVGuide.com. The editorial content of the magazine was launched on a new site, TVGuideMagazine.com, which did not feature
TV Guides listings in any form. TVGuideMagazine.com was later shut down on June 1, 2010;
TV Guide magazine and TVGuide.com then entered into a deal to restore content from the magazine to the latter website, which
Lionsgate Entertainment had bought along with the TV Guide Network in January 2009. In January 2009, the magazine cut several networks from its grid listings – including music-oriented MTV and
DIY Network – citing "space concerns"; however, two cuts, those of
The CW and TV Guide Network, were seen as suspicious and arbitrary, as the magazine carries several channels which have the same schedule night after night or have low viewership and could have easily been cut, while several
Fox-owned networks continued to be listed due to agreements with the former News Corporation ownership. It is likely that TV Guide Network's removal from
TV Guides listings was related to the "divorce" of the website and network from the magazine. In early February 2009, The CW and MTV were brought back to the listings after the magazine received numerous emails protesting the move; as a consequence, listings for several low-rated networks were removed. The other channels previously incorporated into the listings before their removal were slowly re-added, until TV Guide Network's schedule returned to the listings pages in June 2010 with its logo prominent within the grids as part of the deal with Lionsgate's TV Guide division. Under OpenGate ownership,
TV Guide slowly returned to profitability mainly through cost reductions instituted by its venture capital parent, making significant staffing reductions and switching to biweekly editions full-time, reducing the number of issues it published to 29 per year.
Shift towards features On June 26, 2014, OpenGate Capital announced that
TV Guide would undergo a major redesign beginning with the August 11 issue; the magazine eliminated 14 pages of listings, with the listings pages that remained displaying programming information for only top-rated broadcast and cable networks. It also added "enhanced editorial features", including recommendation sections focusing on traditional television and online programming – such as additional content from senior critic Matt Roush (an expanded "Roush Review" column and an additional column featuring ten picks for each week's programs as selected by Roush) and several new sections ("Upfront", featuring trending television-related stories, infographics, question-and-answer columns and
ratings charts; "The Guide", containing expanded highlights for each day's television programming, including sports, daytime programming and content available for
streaming online; a monthly television-related technology column; "The TV Guide Interview", an occasional feature featuring celebrity interviews focusing on their career; and "On Demand", a review column of movies premiering through streaming and
on-demand services). In addition, the magazine's size was reduced from to in a cost-saving measure; it also began to be distributed in airport newsstands.
Sale to NTVB Media On October 8, 2015, OpenGate Capital sold the magazine and co-owned website TVInsider.com to
Troy, Michigan-based publishing company NTVB Media for an undisclosed amount, marking
TV Guides third ownership transaction in eight years (OpenGate managing partner Andrew Nikou stated that the purchase price was for "more than $1 and less than $3 billion," while estimates from other industry sources stated that the magazine sold for a price within the range of $12 million). TVGM Holdings
chief executive officer David J. Fishman and
chief financial officer Joe Clemente, as well as the remainder of the magazine's 62-person staff, were to remain with the company; the magazine's corporate offices in New York City, Los Angeles and
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania would also remain in operation – the former two of which also continue to base the magazine's editorial staff. The acquisition made NTVB Media the largest owner of consumer television publications in the United States, with a combined reach of more than 20 million readers. NTVB already owned
TV Weekly and
Channel Guide, both of which provide national editorial content and – through syndication agreements with 160+ newspapers throughout the country, in which they are distributed as supplementary publications incorporated within each paper's Sunday editions – listings customized for individual regions (the company began distributing its listings magazines in this manner in 2008, as newspapers began to cease publication of their proprietary television listings magazines due to cost-cutting measures spurred by declining circulation and revenue); it also publishes listings publications for pay-TV providers such as
Comcast,
Time Warner Cable and
Dish Network. As such, it is undetermined whether NTVB will reach deals to distribute
TV Guide to newspapers on a separate basis or extend the name to its existing television publications. Staff with
TV Guide and NTVB's other titles will collaborate on feature content included in the respective magazines, while the company will fold advertising sales for the magazine with its existing television magazine titles. ==Editions==