in memoriam, magazines, rupert murdoch, tv guide

The Death Agony Of America's Biggest Magazine

Amsellucy The death of the quintessential TV listings magazine is a shabby affair. The rumor we floated yesterday—that editor-in-chief Ian Birch and other staff are being laid off—appears indeed to be true. The new owners, Macrovision, is thought only interested in the TV Guide's online and electronic program guides; the print edition is loss-making and may be shut down if a buyer can't be found, according to Deadline Hollywood. The magazine—which could not cope with the proliferation of programming in the 1980s and 1990s and further lost relevance when viewers began to use the program guides supplied by their cable provider—will not be mourned. But let's at least pay some respect to its history.

The title was an instant success when it launched in 1953 and at its peak in 1970, with almost 20m readers, its circulation was by some margin the largest of any magazine. In 1988, the parent company went for an astonishing $3bn to Rupert Murdoch's News America—one of the Australian media mogul's most disastrous deals, as it later become evident. The electronic operations and the brand may retain some value; but the print title is essentially worthless except as an object lesson for a publishing industry under assault by technological change.

4:14 PM on Thu May 1 2008
By Nick Denton
2,246 views
28 comments

Comments

intothelight at 04:24 PM on 05/01/08
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damn, there goes the only crossword puzzle i could ever finish.
TheHonJudgeSmails at 04:26 PM on 05/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 935

I buy TV Guide for the irony.
$Image of I Don\'t Get It$ I Don't Get It at 04:26 PM on 05/01/08
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Au revoir to the most throwable magazine ever.
MrJames at 04:27 PM on 05/01/08
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I love Lucy.
Martita at 04:27 PM on 05/01/08
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I guess this means print media really is dead. RIP, TV Guide.
Greg Johnson at 04:29 PM on 05/01/08
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Big ups! Somewhere, Frank Costanza weeps.

(I love Lucy, too.)
Knucklehead Babylon at 04:31 PM on 05/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 16

Oh but the collectability of back issues will skyrocket. Just like Pogs!
DaeSu at 04:35 PM on 05/01/08
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When I was a kid my sister and I would actually fight over it when it arrived in the mail. (Yes, my parents had a subscription for years.)

Haven't picked one up in well over a decade or two, but I'll miss it when it's gone.
PickleTitsTurner at 04:36 PM on 05/01/08
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Let's be honest, the quality of the writing had declined over the years.

Mr. Denton,
How much would you sell/trade Gawker for. A bajillion dollars, that Honus Wagner baseball card, unlimited wishes, what would it take?
depardoo at 04:36 PM on 05/01/08
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This and Reader's Digest.
ljnd2 at 04:39 PM on 05/01/08
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@I Don't Get It: OMG, I used to throw this at my sister all the time.
dweeb at 04:42 PM on 05/01/08
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Making Christmas trees out of Vanity Fair will just not be the same.
SneakingThroughTheAlle... at 04:49 PM on 05/01/08
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But isn't just an evolution? I thought their online effort was relatively popular?

@Knucklehead Babylon: Thank you for taking me right back to 6th grade lunch. I dumped someone after 2 hrs once because I passed him a note and he didnt reply because he was too busy trading pogs.

I heard that he's joined up w/ the gays.
Gayyker at 04:55 PM on 05/01/08
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I was always kind of weirded out whenever I saw a TBA listed in the TV guide. It was always on some skeevy channel like The Superstation. Get your act together in time for publication!
JuneBuggy at 04:57 PM on 05/01/08
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More shocking: that not one media reporter picked up on this story sooner. The mag has been suffering a slow death for three years now. Say what you will about the content, the mag is a classic instantly recognizable brand and its departure is a significant reminder of the changing landscape of magazine publishing.
SecureLocation at 05:00 PM on 05/01/08
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No question that Rupe got a haircut on TV Guide. He's written the whole investment down by now so it probably doesn't hurt as much as if you or I blew $3 Billion on a bad purchase. As you point out, at one time the magazine was a cash geyser. At its peak it sold 7 million copies a week at the newsstand. But this is one brand that really could live on as a website with TV listings and reviews.
Ed at 05:15 PM on 05/01/08
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We never subscribed but one summer day in 1981, my mother came home with a copy that the cashier had accidentally put in her bag instead of the previous customer.

Miss Piggy was on the cover, on a floatable chaise raft in a swimming pool. I belioeve she was even interviewed.

That was some hard-hitting journalism.
Cory at 05:16 PM on 05/01/08
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@Gayyker: I always get weirded out when I see TBA because my school shows (straight) porn under the TBA title.
Lucia Toledo at 05:21 PM on 05/01/08
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In our house, TV Guide was considered a luxury, since the Sunday papers also gave weekly listings, albeit in hard-to-read and messy-to-keep form. I had to go across the street to my aunt's house for the lovely experience of scanning conveniently-formatted listings for specials, movies, and episode descriptions. And I got cookies there, too.
whitekidinflatbush at 05:47 PM on 05/01/08
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At our house, it came every Monday. I would come home and all the neighborhood kids would hang out in the driveway while I would instantly flip to next week's ad for Melrose Place to see what the rating would be; TV14-DL meant that I could skip it, but TV14-S meant that I had to watch, no arguments.
Gayyker at 06:01 PM on 05/01/08
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@Cory: Your SCHOOL shows porn?
Mr-Busy at 06:25 PM on 05/01/08
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...it jumped the shark when they changed its shape... bring back what it was... and it will be festivus for allofus once again.
lowbrown at 06:50 PM on 05/01/08
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i haven't seen one of these in a long time, but we subscribed and i do remember it was a great place to find columbia house cassette titles to select from. 10 tapes for a penny! i would like to send out one last cheer and one last jeer to TV guide.
htotheomo at 07:22 PM on 05/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 195

@I Don't Get It: National Geographic?
zibby at 07:58 PM on 05/01/08
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@Lucia Toledo: I hear ya. My old man steadfastly refused to pay for TV Guide when "The Same Thing" came with The Courant every weekend. We might have been out of luck on The Courant too, but it happened to be my paper route.
Cory at 12:19 AM on 05/02/08
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@Gayyker: Usually once a semester. They get it on a fancy, old timey reel too! Not, like, low quality RealPlayer files!

Which is actually surprising because we're such a computer science school.
Muscato at 06:47 AM on 05/02/08
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I feel skeevy, yet nostalgic, when I realize that my main TV Guide memory has to do with an underwear advertisement that featured, I believe, Pete Rose. Let's just say that Grandma spent a long time trying to find that issue and would have missed a Beverly Sills concert on PBS if she hadn't kept the Sunday paper...
foolinthepool at 09:41 AM on 05/02/08
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The format was always a little too busy for the way my brain works, but it makes me sad anyway that it's dying off. And I love Lucy, too. Sometimes when in need of a good laugh I just think about her wearing that lampshade when they were in Paris and Ricky tricked her into thinking it was couture. She still got the last laugh.