The Boston Globe is discontinuing the Sunday "TV Week" supplement, effective October 26.
A notice on the front page of today's TV Week suggests subscribing to TV Guide as an alternative. But have they seen TV Guide lately? It's now the size of a standard magazine, and it no longer publishes all those local and regional editions you may remember. In fact, it now has no local TV listings at all.
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Try this for TV listings -
By Anonymous
Sun, 10/12/2008 - 11:39pm
Try this for TV listings - http://tvplanner.comcast.net/
I prefer Yahoo TV
By liveinvt
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 12:17pm
Partially because I hate Comcast and do not want to give them more money.
http://tv.yahoo.com/listings
Boston.com still has listings
By langmead
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 12:33am
At least they do through their deal with zap2it. Since digital cable and satellite TV both have on screen listings, how many people need the Globe to find out what is on TV? How many people fit all the following criteria: Globe readers, without cable TV, and unlikely to look up information on the internet?
Just because the Internet is newer
By Ron Newman
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 9:06am
doesn't mean it's the right tool for every purpose, or that it's easier to use than what it replaces.
Let's say I want to know when "Meet the Press" starts on Sunday morning. What's easier, turning on the computer and finding the right site to search, or turning to page 9 of a printed magazine?
(And by the way - does anyone here know if the Sunday Herald still has a TV section?)
Digital Solution
By liveinvt
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 12:20pm
I have found, in a majority of cases, the internet provides the result faster and easier than any other source.
Google 'meet the press'
First link result, airtimes link middle of page. Done in <1min.
Good example ... not
By Ron Newman
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 1:17pm
I did just what you said, and the page http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080248/ never displays the airtimes, because it waits forever to fetch them from a site called "anrtx.tacoda.net" which seems to have been turned off today.
On the other hand, unless your dog, cat, or baby rips up the TV magazine, it's always there for you.
EDIT: After several minutes' wait, the page displayed the airtimes. But it assumes that the reader knows the call letters 'WHDH-TV', when most viewers know it better as 'Channel 7'.
MTP 9am Sunday
By liveinvt
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 2:55pm
I guess so. Right on that page, which loaded for me instantly,
“Meet the Press” airs Sundays from 9-10 a.m. ET on the NBC-TV network
So I would put it on NBC at 9am on Sunday. Guess what's on? :D There is no need to look up what your local affiliate is, or whatever.
Everyone has their preferences. Mine is the net, and I'm rarely (<10%?) let down.
Except that further down the page
By Ron Newman
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 3:01pm
it says that the show is actually on at 10:30 in Boston. Lots of other affiliates are also at times other than 9 am. So the page is not only slow, it's confusing and misleading.
I brought up this example precisely because it's a network show that isn't on at any fixed time nationally (and therefore the new disimproved TV Guide would be of no help whatsoever)
Sunday
By liveinvt
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 3:22pm
I'll just have to wait until next Sunday and find out myself.
For the record, I would never use a show's actual page to obtain dates and times for their broadcast. I would, as indicated elsewhere, simply use a TV listings webpage.
Of all the things the internet provides, tv listings is probably in the bottom 20% of useful information. IMHO, this is a horrible example, despite solutions readily available.
However, it must be nice to guide your availability to the scheduling of the media. I'm more the opposite - I sit down to find something to watch when I am free, rather than making myself free to watch the thing that has found me.
I tend not to use web based schedules either.
By langmead
Tue, 10/14/2008 - 10:05pm
A few months ago I noticed my TV Week in my Sunday Globe and realized how I never even opened it anymore. Most of my deciding what to view for the weeks ahead comes from the onscreen guide of my DishNetworks receiver. Its been heading that way for a long time.
In the mid '90s, my boss at the time bought a product called VideoGuide which added the now typical onscreen grid for schedules and could interface with a VCR to program shows to watch. Since he had the attention span of a gnat, he soon gave it to me and I started using it at home. (I also was working 12-14 hour days for him at the time, and never got to watch prime-time shows while they were being broadcast.)
The last TV I bought includes the "TV Guide on Screen" feature to display this information even with over the air analog TV.
My satellite dish receivers now have a similar feature built in, including search agents. (ie "record the movie Willy Wonka on any channel that broadcasts it." "record any new episodes of Boondocks when a new season starts", "record any movie starring John Belushi", etc.)
I can understand that it is an unfortunate loss for the people who still make use out of the TV Week section, but my life has adjusted in a way that I no longer used it, and I guess I'd rather the Globe take the money that they used to pay to Tribune Media (or whoever they bought their listings from) and used it for something useful to me. I have, on the other hand, considered buying a subscription to Schedules Direct so that I could build a more in-depth search agent system than what Dish currently provides.
My Comcast guide feature is
By ShadyMilkMan
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 1:05pm
My Comcast guide feature is wrong about 25 percent of the time on some channels. It doesnt seem capable of understanding VH1 or MTV and other channels like that when they have marathons. On more then two occasions this week I went to go watch a show the guide said was on only to find out some other show was actually playing. You wouldnt think it would be that hard to keep these things straight with it beeming to cable box every few seconds.
Guess there is still quite a
By paulstone
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 4:14am
Guess there is still quite a few people who like to check out what's on while sitting in their sofa - and not in front of the PC.
Just a matter of time
By Boston Knucklehead
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 6:39am
It was only a matter of time before that happened. I head the Want Advertiser is shutting down, probably due to Craigslist.
That would make sense ,
By ShadyMilkMan
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 7:32am
That would make sense , Craigslist is essentially a super up to date want advertiser. I remember when I was in high school my family used to buy one every month and everyone would look through it to see if there was anything they wanted, in fact thats where I got my first (and second) car. Once Craigslist came out I never looked at the Advertiser again.
My one question with that is where will all the Want Advertiser people go? They had quite a few ads back in the day, and some of that stuff I have never seen on craigslist. I wonder if they will all switch over?
Video killed the radio star
By adamg
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 10:40am
Hudson's Want Advertiser closes its doors:
From what I saw in the new T.B. Guide...
By Spatch
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 10:27am
(koff, koff)
The darn thing doesn't even list anything beyond prime-time listings, which is making daytime TV watchers upset.
On the other hand, they did a lovely cheesecake cover of the Desperate Housewives recently, but you can't judge a magazine by its cover...
and lets be honest most
By ShadyMilkMan
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 5:47pm
and lets be honest most people know when their favorite shows are on in primetime anyway. What people really dont have committed to memory is the daytime and weekend schedules that change all the time on all the channels.
I used to collect the TV Guides when they were digest size!
By Cleary Squared
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 10:40am
Whenever I went out of state for a trip - and even in state to Springfield - I collected the TV Guides before they went tabloid, both in size and in content.
It was funny seeing how TV evolved in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and the ads themselves were a scream. The back page was almost always a cigarette ad, but it got replaced with other ads once the tobacco companies settled with the government and pulled them all out.
The best part were the channels, and how they were divided into black TVs for local channels and white TVs for outside area channels.
al roker/ frank costanza/tv guide
By bostnkid
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 11:26am
does anyone know what happened to franks issue with al roker on the cover?
You could have watched SIX STRAIGHT HOURS OF LUCY
By Spatch
Mon, 10/13/2008 - 12:25pm
I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show... Here's Lucy!