TV Guide (magazine)
 | |
| Editor-in-Chief | Michael P. Fell |
|---|---|
| Categories | Entertainment news |
| Frequency | Biweekly |
| Circulation | 938,780[1] |
| Founder |
|
| Founded | 1948 (entered as second class mailer August 10, 1948, at P.O. New York City) |
| First issue | April 3, 1953 |
| Company | TV Guide Magazine LLC[2] (NTVB Media) |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | English |
| Website | tvguidemagazine.com |
| ISSN | 0039-8543 |
| OCLC | 5593691 |
TV Guide is an American biweekly magazine that provides television program listings information as well as television-related news, celebrity interviews and gossip, film reviews, crossword puzzles, and, in some issues, horoscopes. The print magazine's operating company, TV Guide Magazine LLC, is owned by NTVB Media since 2015.[3] The magazine was spun off from TV Guide in 2008 by then-owner Macrovision to OpenGate Capital for $1 and a $9.5 million loan.[3]
TV Guide Magazine has a license to use the TV Guide name and distinctive red and white logo in print publications only; it is prohibited from using the branding or logo online.[3] While the TV Guide trademark and other intellectual property is owned by Fandom, Inc., the TV Guide name and editorial content from the magazine are licensed by Fandom for use on the magazine's promotional website and mobile app.[4][5]
History
[edit]Prototype
[edit]The prototype of what would become TV Guide magazine was developed by Lee Wagner (1910–1993),[6] who was the circulation director of MacFadden Publications in New York City in the 1930s – and later, by the time of the predecessor publication's creation, for Cowles Media Company – distributing magazines focusing on movie celebrities.
In 1948, he printed New York City area listings magazine The TeleVision Guide, which was first released on local newsstands on June 14 of that year. Silent film star Gloria Swanson, who then starred of the short-lived variety series The Gloria Swanson Hour, appeared on the cover of the first issue. Wagner later began publishing regional editions of The TeleVision Guide for New England and the Baltimore–Washington area. Five years later, he sold the editions to Walter Annenberg, who folded it into his publishing and broadcasting company Triangle Publications, but remained as a consultant for the magazine until 1963.[7]
Annenberg/Triangle era
[edit] | This section needs more citations. (August 2018) |
Triangle publications Inc. was inherited by Walter H. Annenburg from his father (Moses L. Annenburg 1878-1942) in 1942, and Annenburg Jr subsequently developed the magazine TV guide.[8]The first national issue of TV Guide was released on April 3, 1953, with a circulation of 1,560,000 copies in ten U.S. cities. The inaugural cover featured a photograph of Lucille Ball's newborn son, Desi Arnaz, Jr., with a smaller inset photo of Ball in the corner under the headline: "Lucy's $50,000,000 baby".[9] The magazine was printed in digest size, a format it kept for 52 years.[10] From its debut until July 2–8, 1954, listings ran Friday through Thursday. The July 9–16 issue ran Friday through Friday. Beginning July 17–23, 1954, issues ran Saturday through Friday, a format kept until April 2004.[citation needed]
TV Guide grew out of Triangle Publications’ purchase of several local listings magazines, including TV Forecast (first published May 9, 1948, in Chicago, the first continuously published television listings magazine), TV Digest (in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, originally called The Local Televiser), and the New York-based Television Guide (renamed TV Guide on March 18, 1950).[11][12] Each of these cities became part of TV Guide's initial rollout.
The launch was an immediate success, but circulation soon declined even as the magazine expanded to Pittsburgh, Rochester, Detroit, Cleveland and San Francisco. By mid-August 1953, sales had fallen 200,000 below the first issue. The September 4–10, 1953, "Fall Preview" issue reversed the trend, selling 1,746,327 copies. Circulation then grew steadily, and by the 1960s TV Guide was the most widely read magazine in the United States.[13] The cover price was 15¢ (equivalent to $1.81 in 2025; by as of 2014[update], it was $4.99). In addition to subscriptions, TV Guide was sold in grocery store checkout lanes nationwide. Until the 1980s, feature stories were also advertised in television commercials. Under Triangle, TV Guide became recognized as the leading authority on television, publishing articles—most in the color section—by staff and contributing writers.
The TV Guide logo evolved with the television screen itself. It shifted to a widescreen style in September 2003 and a flatscreen style in September 2016. Slightly different versions are used for the magazine and for the CBS-managed digital properties. Early logos had backgrounds in various colors until the red background became standard in the 1960s, though special editions sometimes varied.
The magazine was first based in a small Philadelphia office, then moved in the late 1950s to larger headquarters in Radnor, Pennsylvania. The facility housed management, editors, production staff, subscription processors, and a computer system cataloging every show and movie. Printing of the national color section—containing articles and reviews—was done at Triangle's Gravure Division plant, next to the Inquirer Building on North Broad Street. This section was then sent to regional printers to be combined with local listings.
Triangle Publications also owned The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, ten radio and six TV stations (including WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, WTNH in New Haven, Connecticut, and KFSN-TV in Fresno, California), as well as The Daily Racing Form, The Morning Telegraph, Seventeen, and cable interests. WFIL-TV, under Triangle, launched American Bandstand, which made Dick Clark a major television personality. Triangle sold its Philadelphia newspapers to Knight Newspapers in 1969 and its broadcast stations in the early 1970s to Capital Cities Communications (later acquired by ABC). It retained TV Guide, Seventeen, and The Daily Racing Form.
TV Guide emphasized original copywriting, often based on screenings and interviews, rather than reusing material from broadcasters. For its first 52 years, the magazine’s program listings appeared in a “log” format: a text-based list of programs organized by start time and channel. This remained the sole method of presenting program information until national listings were introduced in 2005. When prime time grids were later added, the log became the primary, and in its final two years the secondary, display method. The log format allowed full program titles and included synopses for movies and most shows. Most entries also listed program genres (and for national news programs, the anchor) after the title. Running time was included only if a program lasted at least one hour (later, 35 minutes), shown in hours and minutes within the synopsis.
Channel numbers appeared at the start of each entry in a round icon (“bullet”), later modified into a TV screen shape resembling the ‘‘TV Guide’’ logo. In most editions, stations in the immediate coverage area were shown with a white numeral inside a black TV-shaped bullet; stations from neighboring markets that could also be received locally were shown with a black numeral inside a white bullet outlined in black. For example, in the San Francisco edition, San Francisco and Oakland stations appeared in white-on-black bullets, while stations from Sacramento or Salinas/Monterey were listed in black-on-white bullets. A single listing could begin with three or more bullets if multiple local and nearby stations aired the same program (often different affiliates of the same network). See “Listings section” in the “Editions” section below for more detail.
Daily listings extended past midnight until the last station signed off for the night, sometimes as late as 4:00 a.m. local time. Each day’s program listings, meanwhile, started with the earliest sign-on, as early as 5:00 a.m., which eventually became the hard delineation point for each daily programming section as stations began signing on earlier or transitioned to 24-hour schedules. Initially, most programs in the log had brief synopses, except for local and national newscasts or certain shows. As more broadcast stations and cable channels were added, space limits required changes: detailed synopses were generally reserved for prime-time series and specials plus movies on broadcast television. Shorter synopses were used for out-of-market broadcasts and select cable channels, while most other programs were listed with only a title and basic details (such as genre or running time). Black-and-white ads for upcoming programs—first for broadcast stations and later for cable—were also included. These ads featured local airtimes and station information, with networks producing most national ads and local stations producing their own for newscasts or other shows, often using their distinctive logos (such as the ABC “Circle 7”). Ads for general products and services, like those in other magazines, also appeared.
A regular feature of the listings section was "Close-Up", usually a half-page segment, which provided expanded reviews of select programs airing each day (various editions of "Close-Up" were eventually used for different types of programs, from premieres of new series to shows airing on cable). Parades, classic movies, sports match-ups and political events could all merit Close-ups. Over time, other regular and recurring features (most of them television-related) were included alongside the listings including "Insider" (a television news and interview section in the lead pages of the color section); "Cheers and Jeers" (a critique page about various aspects of television programming); "Hits and Misses" (featuring brief reviews of select programs in the coming week, rated on a score from 0 to 10); "Guidelines" (a half-page daily section featuring highlights of five or six programs of interest); horoscopes; recaps of the previous week's storylines on network daytime