For the past 5 or so years, I’ve had a pretty good cable service. Part of it is an extensive guide of what’s on every channel. I push guide on my remote and the guide comes on the TV, a very nice menu. It also displays what’s on every channel right on the screen as I flip through, with a brief description of the plot of every show. For live events, it has info also, like who is playing who and where. Quite detailed and very accurate. It doesn’t go more than 3 days into the future and is almost always dead on, even if changes are made the same day as the event. For example, it doesn’t say Game 6 of the World Series is coming on, 'cause that’s over.
My question is this. Who types in all this info? Is there a huge company of people just typing stuff in? Oh, the company is Americast if you are wondering. I don’t think they are very big(another reason it’s so amazing), but I guess I’ll say anyway. Any ideas?
As for your cable service, I can’t say. But I’ve often wished that I worked for TV Guide, since I could write far more accurate descriptions of a show’s plot then they typically do.
(I’d also like to write the description for a particular episode of Star Trek: “Kirk meets the space hippies”)
I’ve got pretty much the same system for my cable. However, I can’t answer your question.
I do however remember reading a description for a popular children’s movie, that somebody found in the TV Guide or something. (Probably apocryphal.)
The Wizard of Oz
A young girl is transported to a surreal landscape where she kills the first woman she meets. She then teams up with three complete stranger in order to kill again.
Maybe the networks write the descriptions themselves and send them in the form of press releases to the various companies that care about what’s on. For example, Thursday night’s Friends: NBC probably wrote the description and then sent it out to TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, your local newpaper’s TV supplement, your cable company, etc.
“. Part of it is an extensive guide of
what’s on every channel. I push guide on my remote and the guide comes on the TV”
Mine too. But mine is part of the tv. On the tv itself it says ‘gemstar’ & those are the people who write the program stuff.
You see, my tv itself, not the cable system, has what is called ‘GuidePlus’, which does just what you are saying, a full tvguide. Its completely free…This tv can program your vcr to record a program just by selecting the program on the guide. Its from GE. IT was $227.00 for a 27" tv. cheap.
I don’t think it’s always the networks who provide the explanations.
On some of my movie channels the descriptions include “A tired farce…” or “Unoriginal sequel to…”.
