Eve - Maybe it’s time to invest it TiVo and let it decide what you want to watch.
StG
Just a thought…maybe The Times bowed to quiet pressure from networks, studios, etc., to do their bit to discourage digital recording (and possible consequent bootlegging) of movies, sports and other events?
St Germain I don’t think adding a complicated device with an elaborate remote is the answer here.
Beware Of Doug
That was a joke, right?
Can’t help with the hard copy problem. However, www.zap2it.com lets you access listings by day up to 2 weeks in advance. Plus, they give show summaries/episode info on the daily[sup]*[/sup] grid.
*Well, it’s not really a daily grid. You can only display 6 hours at a time.
If I were a local newspaper I’d be tempted to dump the TV listings, too. Here’s why.
The TV networks don’t give a damn about scheduling anymore.
Last night I was looking forward to catching the A&E “Biography” of Cheers. The local paper’s Sunday TV magazine had given it a nice little paragraph, with a photo, even. It promised interviews with James Burrows, Ted Danson and others.
Instead, A&E decided to go with one of its damn crime shows. Instead of a nice little retrospective with James Burrows, et al, I got a dastardly murder with Bill Kurtis.
Multiply that by our six local stations and the 80-odd cable channels in my little weekly booklet and 336 half-hour slots in a week, and that’s 28,896 chances per week that someone will call the local paper to complain that the listings are wrong. And all the paper can say is “But that’s what they told us.”
If I’m the editor, I’d be sorely tempted to say “Screw 'em. If they want to watch TV, let the TV tell them what’s on!”
Not necessarily, Doc. The less you know about what’s going to be on in advance, the harder it is to set your DVR to grab that ball game MLB won’t give you the express written consent to own, or that never-to-be-released-on-DVD movie that hits TCM at 3:30 Monday morning. It’s potentially another way to limit people’s entertainment options to what they want you to see, when they want you to see it.
Beware Of Doug
That theory falls apart when you look at the many websites providing listings. Finding listings is easy online. The Yahoo listings are usually accurate, and clicking on titles, or the names in the cast takes you to the IMDB. Since so many people are getting listings on the web, and through PDA’s, cellphones, etc, it is no longer worth the paper’s expense to print them.
Secondly, MLB doesn’t want you to miss the game. They want very much for you to see it. If everybody misses the game, the ratings will plummet. If the ratings plummet, what network will want to pay MLB for the right to air games? The same is true of all sports.
I still think there might be a certain fall-off in home recording, simply because the info is no longer sitting on your doorstep in a neat bundle every Saturday or Sunday morning; you have to hunt it down yourself. And besides, it keeps The Times’ hands a little cleaner, as far as being seen to encourage people to rip shows.
Whatever, I seriously doubt Big Media is all that disappointed in The Times’ TV weekly biting the dust.
I’ve never really gotten a good look at Tivo or the like. But, it’s a heck of a lot easier to get TV listings online than it is to program a VCR.
Printing a schedule of factually true, public information cannot be remotely reasonably seen as encouraging people to copy shows for illegal purposes.
It cannot be reasonably seen as encouraging people to record shows, rather than watching them, for later viewing. It would not matter if it did. Time Shifting, the practice of recording broadcast material for later viewing, is legal and protected by the Home Recording Act.
No, but they would be massively upset if people missed their programs. Without big ratings, how will they convince advertisers to buy commerical space for huge amounts of money? People may have already paid for HBO etc. But if nobody knows when a movie is on, it gets low ratings. How will movie studios convince the premium channels to pay huge amounts of money for their movies if they get low ratings?
The Post Office recently sent me a post card informing me that I can ship flat rate boxes for $8.10. I may actually mail something. This will be, barring sending back filled out forms in a supplied pre-paid business reply envelope, the first thing I have mailed in years. E-mail is free and near instantaneous. Fed Ex and UPS are more reliable. I can have my bills automatically deducted from my checking account. The Post Office is offering flat rate shipping because they can no longer afford not to.
Technology changes things. The sunday paper and TV Guide used to have great sales. Now, most people get the tv listings from other sources. Printing a weekly guide and a daily listing cost money. They no longer bring enough sales to cover that expense. The weekly guide and daily listing are dropped. TV Guide sales dropped like crazy. They found that people get the tv listing elsewhere. TV Guide re-organized into a magazine about television shows and actors.
It has nothing to do with copying shows.
OK Doc, I’ll concede. But only because you seem to care so much more about proving me wrong than I do about being right.
Blowhard.
Yeah, but not always for the better.
Old way: You get a nice little paper booklet that you can put on your coffee table and circle the whole week’s viewing/taping.
New way: You start up your computer, find the web site, scroll around and see if they have anything beyond today’s listings, print it out (using your ink and paper, which cost money)–so you now have a nice little paper booklet that you can put on your coffee table and circle the whole week’s viewing/taping.
That’s an advance, how? I went out and got the local Picayune-Bugle Gazette, which still has a weekly TV listing, and I’m going to call the Times tomorrow and ask them why I should continue to subscribe when I have to buy another paper to do their job?
Eve, go buy Newsday. You’ll actually find what’s going on in your neighborhood without reading 50 column inches first, and you’ll get your TV listings.
“There are two kinds of fools in this world, one says this is old and therefore good, the other says this is new and therefore better.”
No TV? Sounds like paradise. You should get a bit of reading done, and you’ll forget about the crap they pipe into your sitting room in no time.
For what it’s worth, my elderly mom doesn’t use the computer, and none of her elderly friends do, either. So telling her the listings are available online just makes her angry. She gets pissed when the newscasters say, “for more information about this story, go to our website”. Since she and the others in her demographic are the only ones subscribing to the newspapers these days, you’d think the papers would want to keep the features that their subscribers want.