U.S. TV Guide for sale, sans online component
According to some recent reports, Macrovision, the owners of TV Guide in the States is trying to con somebody into buying its print title, without the online component TVGuide.com. This despite the fact that it's only the online component that has any appreciable profits or future.
In this, Transcontinental Media was way ahead of the curve when it decided a year ago last October to bow to the inevitable and shut down the Canadian print version of TV Guide, carrying on with an online guide only.
CFO James Budge says: “We expect the online properties to continue their steady historical growth and planned for a minimum of 10 percent revenue gains for the next few years.” Which is more than may be expected of the print guide.Nevertheless, CEO Fred Amoroso noted that there has been plenty of interest and it plans to have the sales done by the end of the year. Other assets on the block include the TV network and the Horse Racing Channel: “We have gotten a tremendous number of inbound calls on that.”
In this, Transcontinental Media was way ahead of the curve when it decided a year ago last October to bow to the inevitable and shut down the Canadian print version of TV Guide, carrying on with an online guide only.
posted by D. B. Scott at
5:46 pm
2 Comments:
Yet strangely enough, we have never been more in need of this type of value-added information. Channel sprawl (and the quality of television itself) has gotten so bad that you have to look harder and need much more guidance to find what you want; and the long, gray grids offered by the newspaper supplements defy comprehension.
There's a failure of imagination here. People are spending thousands on fancy new TVs and $100 a month on cable. Why can't anyone persuade them to spend a few more bucks a month to make sure they get what they want out of the medium?
@ Rick
The contrary is true since a printed version would need to a guide to all channels. Covering all channels will trying to have a weekly magazine not become the size of a phone book leaves room for no meaningful insight into the programs that it's trying to cover. The use of digital decriptions either on a cable box or online is much more adventageous.
Plus I would hardly describe putting up a TV Guide logo on the TV section of the Sympatico portal a truly legimate only presence like that of tvguide.com
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