Big Changes -- for TV Guide?!

TV Guide, it seems, is having problems. Their circulation is down to 9,000,000 from a high of 20,000,000. I guess it's because of things like Tivo, which keep track of TV listings in addition to the other ways they improve lives. But there's probably more to it, because newspapers have had television listings forever. Well, by "forever" I mean "since a few decades before I was born".

According to the AP story, they're "radically remaking itself into a title with a much smaller circulation, a larger, full-color format, fewer listings and more stories about TV shows and stars." Boy, it's not very often you hear a magazine plan to go to a much smaller circulation, is it? But a full-color magazine with stories about TV shows and stars? That could be just what this country (the USA) is waiting for!

There's more information in the Los Angeles Times. They're cutting back on show listings, which seems like it will render the listings practically useless. I was just thinking I needed listings for more channels, not fewer. What, are they going to cut back to prime time network-only?

I'm going to guess that you haven't bothered to click on either of those links I thoughtfully provided you. That's okay; I probably wouldn't either. You're a busy person. I'll summarize: they have everything you'd expect. Someone waxing rhapsodic (you heard me) about the crossword puzzle, a spokesman talking about how "TV Guide" has huge name recognition, that same spokesman not really explaining why a radical format change is a good idea for keeping that name recognition, and a buried mention of the huge layoffs the magazine will be facing.

I don't know how big the layoffs will be, but I'm surprised to learn that there are enough people at the magazine to be laid off in the first place. I'm sure they're all good, hardworking people, and I realize that a weekly magazine is a lot of effort, but isn't it like 16 pages of content at a time? And aren't most of those pages ads for collector plates anyway? Or am I thinking of Parade magazine? And now that I mention that, how long until we see a big Parade redesign?

There are not a lot of details on what the new magazine will be like (although you probably wouldn't be far off if you guessed the word "glossy" would apply in more than one way). The LA Times has a guy saying that "while we're changing the format, the magazine is not a celebrity magazine." And then they point out that the new editor is a "veteran of British and American celebrity magazines." And one prototype of the new magazine has such hard news items as a two-page glossary of terms used on CSI, a two-page feature on celebrity moms, and a fashion spread on "How to look like a Gilmore Girl". Wait, you mean people want to dress like Lorelai?

While I obviously don't know exactly what direction they're going in, I think they're going in the wrong direction with this. This is a great time to cross everybody up. We're all expecting a totally content-free magazine with forty pages of cheers and jeers. What they should do is suddenly make the magazine a lame knockoff of Spy. You know, like Radar is. If they'd made this relaunch sound remotely cool, all the hipsters would be flocking to it to see The New TV Guide. As it is, all they're going to get is people who liked The Old TV Guide. And if there were so darn many of those people, they wouldn't have this problem to begin with.