RIP TVG

Oh sure, she's been showing her age lately. It's been obvious to all that she just hasn't been the same over the past few years. And somewhere in the back of our minds we knew that her days were numbered. Of course we hoped that we were wrong, but we knew otherwise.

Sadly, the end has come. The venerable TV Guide, the nation's number-one selling magazine for much of the past 50 years, has ceased to exist. In its place... the so-called "new and improved" TV Guide.

Let's face it: TV Guide has been in decline for several years. Under the inauspcious ownership of Rupert Murdoch (who purchased the magazine from Walter Annenberg in 1988), serious television journalism (once a crowning achievement of TV Guide) was jettisoned in favor of lighter, fluffier pieces. The local listings section, once the envy of all other listings sources, has for the past few years been a mere shell of its former self.

Nevertheless, this is TV Guide about which we're speaking. In its heyday, the Guide was the weekly bible for the television aficionado. For those of us who knew in our younger years that we wanted to someday be a part of the television industry, the weekly Guide was required (and highly anticipated) reading.

But times have changed, and so have the ways in which people get their television programming information. With many homes capable of receiving at least 200 channels, the relevance of a printed listings guide has diminshed. On-screen program guides and online listing sources have become the 21st-century guides of choice for those who have access to those aforementioned 200 channels.

Aiming to stay relevant in this new universe, News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch's mighty empire) has decided to ditch the digest-sized, heavy-on-the-local-listings TV Guide. In its place comes the new, full-magazine-sized TV Guide. The biggest change within this upheaval is the elimination of local TV listings. In place of the local listings comes a national, catch-all grid for both broadcast and cable/satellite channels. This is a huge blow to die-hard readers of the Guide.

At first glance, the new TV Guide gives faithful and long-time readers hope that the old Guide may have morphed into something akin to Entertainment Weekly, a periodical which actually injects journalistic values into its coverage of the worlds of movies, television, music, home video, and books. Need proof of EW's journalistic chops? Then check out the article entitled "Lost in Transmission" in the October 29th edition of the magazine.

Alas, upon deeper inspection, one discovers that the result of the new Guide is a magazine that's disappointingly lacking in journalistic depth, and instead is heavy on "celebrity light" reading material. It's actually closer in look and feel to News Corp.'s recently-launched television-centric, celebrity-focused weekly Inside TV (which appears to be turning into a calamitous failure for Mr. Murdoch's empire). For those unfamiliar with Inside TV, let me tell you: being compared to Inside TV is not a compliment.

Is the new TV Guide the worst thing I've ever read? No. Of course not. Far from it. In fact, there were a few interesting reads, including a pretty good piece on Lost. But is it the TV Guide of its glory days? Sadly, the answer is no.

Rest in peace, old friend. The world of television won't be the same without you.