It's with mixed feelings that I present today's I remember JFK memory. You see, my very thrifty father simply saw no reason to spend 15 cents on a copy of TV Guide, so we didn't have the diminutive periodical in our house when I was a child. However, I would see copies of it next to easy chairs at my friends' homes, so I grew familiar with its concise weekly program listings anyway.
When there were three or four channels on television, TV guide reigned supreme.
TV Guide, the national publication, debuted on April 3, 1953. The cover had a photo of Lucy and Ricky's baby, "Little Ricky." The magazine was designed to replace local program listings that were published by big-city newspapers, although, curiously, both genres have continued to exist side-by-side ever since.
Its aim was to present television's listings accurately, and to provide pointed commentary on its content at the same time.
To that end, it was a rousing success. Far from worshipping the medium it gave timely schedules for, TV guide was more of an outspoken critic of the lost opportunities that television would continuously squander that might have raised itself to a higher level of quality.
It would take the side of a struggling series with a high level of quality, and it frequently dragged me along in the process. I tried in vain to get friends to watch The Paper Chase in the 70's, only to be ignored as they continued to watch the misadventures of Sheriff Lobo instead.
TV Guide peaked in popularity during those very 1970's, its circulation topping out at around 20 million.
It has always been an amusing mix of miniaturized journalism that begs to be made fun of. Seinfeld portrayed two types of TV Guide fanatics, the obsessive collector (Mr. Costanza) and the lonely subway rider who used copies of the magazine to make art in a failed attempt to impress the ladies.
But TV Guide has always served its primary purpose: telling the viewer exactly what is on at any particular moment during the course of a week, and providing additional entertainment in the form of a crossword puzzle that's easy enough to do with an ink pen. When I could regularly whip TV Guide crosswords without making a mistake, I knew it was time to set my sites on the New York Times versions.
We Boomers can recall many a pleasant evening in front of the old Philco, with cigarette smoke showing up clearly defined in the rays of the picture tube and a fan in the open window blowing hot summer evening air through the living room. The room was dark, but you could hold the TV Guide in the black-and-white light thrown off by the television in order to see if this week's Have Gun, Will Travel was a new episode, or a dad-blasted rerun.
So here's a silent toast to TV Guide, which has somehow endured as television went from analog to cable to digital, and even survived ownership by Rupert Murdoch.
Comments (4)
I lived for TV Guide. The moment we got it I would circle all the shows I wanted to watch that week.
Posted by Rhea | March 28, 2008 12:32 AM
Posted on March 28, 2008 00:32
I subscribed to TV Guide for years until the day that one was delivered to my house with Ellen DeGeneres on the cover. Sorry but I won't willingly accept such a thing in my house against my will.
I contacted TV Guide to tell them I wanted to cancel my subscription and have them refund the remainder to me.
Not a word from them. They just let the subscription run out. No refund. That's what TV is guide is. They don't care about readers.
Posted by russell | March 28, 2008 3:13 PM
Posted on March 28, 2008 15:13
I subscribed to TV Guide for over 30 years but dropped the newer large size garbage about two years ago. They don't have the local stations programming anymore, nor do they have some of the overnight listings that aren't infomercials. Now I get the listings from some of the online sites and get lots of background info from the Internet Movie DataBase. I haven't looked at a copy of the current TV Guide Lite for over a year so I don't know if they saw the error of their ways.
Posted by David S Paleg | March 28, 2008 3:38 PM
Posted on March 28, 2008 15:38
Ahhhh... TV Guide! We had a subscription that *always* arrived late. Always on Monday. I hated that because I'd miss a couple of days listings! I eagerly awaited each Fall Season Preview issue and by the time the new season started would have the entire schedule memorized, even for the times we would be in church! I could tell you what Network cartoons I was missing on Saturday morning because the local stations put in "special programming" like "Studio Wrestling" or "Mid-South Talent Review"(which *always* messed up the new fall schedule). When I left home for college I started my own subscription and kept it going until the "new improved" TV guide made its' ugly appearance a few years ago. I, too, was unsuccessful in getting a cancellation so I waited it out (only 4 months). I don't miss it because it had become just another entertainment gossip rag and I've pretty much stopped watching current TV offerings. I've begun to build a TV on DVD collection of the shows I love and remember from better TV times. I've even looked up old schedules to duplicate an evening of TV from yesteryear just for fun. But I wish I had been more like Mr. Costanza and kept a few for the nostalgic fun of looking through old issues.
Posted by Howie | May 16, 2008 2:58 PM
Posted on May 16, 2008 14:58