TV Guide
If you are around my age, you remember using TVGuide and how useful it was to your family when watching TV. Unfortunately, our family was not a TVGuide Magazine home — we used the “free” TV guide from the Sunday paper.
Every Sunday morning, our family would go to Church, and on the way home my Dad would visit the corner deli to buy rolls & buns (donuts for those of you outside of New York). He would also buy the papers. Yes, “papers” – 3 to be exact – the New York Times, the New York Daily News and Newsday, the Long Island paper. Once we got home, my mother would start breakfast, and Dad would conquer and divide the paper, handing out sections of each to my sisters and me. I always hoped to get the sports section from the New York Times, but most Sundays I had to settle for Newsday’s sports.
Dad would also take out the TV guide section of the Daily News, and place it on the living room coffee table, which was it’s designated spot for the week. One of us would be asked (or maybe told) to take the Newsday TV guide to my parents room, the location of the other TV in our house. We were allowed to look at the TV guide, but if it was put back in the wrong location, or — God forbid — turned to a different day, you were sure to pay with extra chores, or at the very least a grimace from Dad. In any event, I learned early on not to touch the TV Guide.
As I think about it, I probably haven’t looked at a paper TV guide in at least 10 years. I might note the time of a game I want to watch as I browse the sports section, but we have no TV Guide — free or otherwise — on our coffee table. It seems strange to think how the TV Guide was so important to a family 1 generation ago. Why the change? And How?
When satellite television began, we were one of the first homes in our neighborhood to get DirectTV, and it was great. We received network channels from both Los Angeles and New York (which threw my parents off, but that is another blog entry for another day), which was one of the greatest benefits DirectTV provided to me — being able to watch the Yankees on a New York television station, of course. But another great benefit? The “OnScreen Guide.” Are you kidding me?! I can watch TV and see what is going to be on the same channel 8 hours later? Cool! That was the end of the paper TV Guide for my family.
This is the sort of a move that is occurring in business today, as newspapers are struggling to move content online. The New York Times is exploring whether or not readers will pay for the online version of the paper. Most, if not all, publishing houses have some sort of online offering, utilizing Amazon’s Kindle, Stanza or a PDF form, among others. How many of you are reading content online that was once in print only? While the print version is still available, newspapers and publishing houses provide an enhanced version of their offering with the online version. They are trying to serve the largest audience without leaving traditionalist (paper readers) out.
How is your business serving your online audience? Do you have a marketing plan that includes marketing to your online customers? Are you going to drop or scale-back your yellow page and newspaper advertising?
Do you use the paper TV Guide or the Onscreen Guide?
By the way, the TVGuide has also moved online, and offers not just a schedule of what is on TV, but also pictures, videos, and articles. If you would like, you can still subscribe to the weekly print version. My parents would be happy.
