Watching TV is Your Job! At TV Guide, workers get paid to watch television. If television viewers watch it, TV Guide probably covers it. Lisa Chambers, managing editor at the magazine, says in-house staff discusses what happens the night before on shows such as American Idol and Gray’s Anatomy to keep the magazine as current and up-to-date as possible. “At 10:30 we have a news meeting,” she says. “We talk about what happened on shows to make sure we are not missing any big stories.” Birnbaum brings the TV fan magazine to life. “For me, TV is very much a water cooler on TV based conversation,” she says. Birnbaum reinforces the idea of keeping the magazine current. “Monday we work on the easier pages such as the horoscope and crossword,” she says. “By Friday, we’re doing all the news and late breaking stories.” At one time over 2,000 people worked at TV Guide. Chambers says the number of workers at the company has drastically shrunk. “TV Guide was sold twice in the last year,” says Chambers, “Now we’re a privately held magazine.” Currently, the creative editing and designing staff consist of 40 workers. Chambers says this number does not include all their ad, marketing and sales staff. Writers create most ideas for the magazine in-house. “We have five staff writers who pitch and generate ideas regularly,” says Chambers. Meetings take place once or twice a week with the senior editors to discuss future stories. With the use of e-mail, however, writers can toss around story ideas any time they come to mind. The magazine also hires contract writers. These contract freelancers make TV Guide their first priority above other publications. “If a freelancer is pitching us, the idea must be targeted or specialized,” says Chambers. For example, one freelancer who wrote for TV Guide in the past
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wrote an article on figure skating. Chambers says since the writer knew things about the sport that no one else on staff knew, they let her do another piece on the same subject. The magazine doesn’t take as many freelancers anymore due to page cut backs, Chambers says. TV Guide handles photographers the same way. Some photographers are on staff while others take contract freelance shoots for the magazine. Birnbaum says the writing staff doesn’t want to just tell what shows they consider great. She finds reader involvement important in the new TV Guide. “We want to hear which shows readers like and which ones need work.” Birnbaum also says that the magazine is not concerned with celebrity gossip. “We’re not a celebrity weekly. I’m not interested in what happens with Brad and Angelina. Where I’m interested in stars is as it affects their professional life as a TV star,” she says. Birnbaum looks to continue the magazine’s evolution by taking chances on making it more newsy and fresh. In the end, she wants to transition away from a listings magazine to a full entertainment magazine.
TV Guide Advertising – From Serving a Diverse Group of Readers to One Demographic Along with TV Guide’s audience, layout design, and editorial content, advertising changed in the new magazine. A regular issue of TV Guide runs around 80 pages. Approximately 25 percent of those pages are dedicated to advertisements. Other entertainment magazines, such as People, have a normal ad-editorial ratio of 40-60. People magazine also contains about 60 more pages than TV Guide. Since most people watch television, there shouldn’t be any limits to who advertises in TV Guide. When TV Guide revamped to a larger magazine late in 2005, its advertising began focusing on a smaller audience – women.
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The advertisements found in today’s TV Guide include those for Lifetime shows, women’s drugs such as Abilify, DVDs for Melrose Place, inserts for Lenox send aways and weight loss products. The only ad in the February 9 issue of the magazine that caters to anyone but women is an M&M ad with a caricature of NASCAR racer Kyle Busch. TV Guide lacks ads for men. Not only women watch television. TV Guide states in their media kit that their target demographic is women between the ages 25-49, therefore it makes sense that their advertisers should also cater towards them rather than all TV viewers. Less biased ads in TV Guide’s digest size focus on both sexes. Every issue showed a mixture of car, hair and food advertisements. Photos of Ford and GM cars and trucks and Star Trek DVDs run in the publication. Ads for CNN and Glad products feature photos of males. Inserts for send away products include items for males such as watches and collectible cars. Readers can find more gender neutral inserts to buy CDs and air
Car advertisements and send aways like this one for a small collectible 1962 corvette used to dominate TV Guide. Now, it is hard to find more than one advertisements for men in a single issue. This M&M ad featuring NASCAR racer Kyle Busch appeared in the February 16 issue of the magazine.
mattresses. The advertisements appeal to everyone who picks up a remote and flips through television channels. TV Guide still lists in their Media Kit many of the advertisers who don’t run in the magazine anymore such as Ford. The old TV Guide really catered to everyone. Digest versions of the magazine featured a high amount of cigarette ads in every issue. The back cover of the January 23, 1999 issue features an advertisement for KOOL lights cigarettes. The magazine catered towards both sexes with ads for both Newport and Virginia Slims. The reader cannot tell if the magazine promoted
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smoking or was against it. In the July 4, 1997 issue, the magazine runs ads for Newport cigarettes and Nicoderm CQ to quit smoking. These conflicting ads show how TV Guide advertised to everyone. Today, these cigarette ads no longer run in the magazine, but the media kit still lists Newport as an advertiser for the magazine. In 1996, the FCC tried to rid of cigarette advertising in magazines with a significant number of readers under the age of 18 by allowing them ads only in black and white. Since TV Guide considers itself a family magazine they cannot print any cigarette ads in their publication. Today, cigarette ads are mostly seen in adult publications. Chambers says the magazine is happy to get any advertisers with the current economy. “We’ll figure out some way to make the advertisers happy to get them into the book,” she says.
The TV Guide Empire More than a Magazine - It’s A Brand Other than the TV Guide channel which started under Murdoch, the brand turned to the Internet. TVGuide.com features TV listings, online video, entertainment and celebrity news. Since
TVGuide.com
no
longer
belongs
with
the
magazine,
TV
Guide
created
tvguidemagazine.com. Recently updated in March 2009, the website’s layout looks eerily similar to its old version. The main difference between the two sites is the color scheme. Both feature three columns running down the page. The tabs on the websites read similar except the magazine website currently does not feature TV listings. The magazine website focuses more on featuring columns from current issues. This appears the only way for the magazine’s new site to distinguish itself from the old website. The new site aims to give updates on television shows. Although the website does a good job including stories not found in its current issue under the News tab, the online version appears
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more gossipy. Daily updates of TV celebrity news make the site less attractive and more cluttered. TV Guide will need to do something more if they expect people to go to their site over the easier to remember TVGuide.com. Unlike the magazine site, TVGuide.com utilizes blogs to involve viewers. One advantage the magazine has over TVGuide.com is that its site contains no advertising. The site is simple and clear to follow. No Nyquil advertisements
A screen shot from the new tvguidemagazine.com (top) doesn’t show much difference than its old tvguide.com (bottom).
impair a viewers experience on the magazine website as they may on TVGuide.com. Currently the magazine tries to encourage reader involvement. TV Insider is a community of TV fans who read the magazine. TV Guide brings readers together to share thoughts on the magazine to ensure the publication meets the needs of its readers. This seems a good idea since the magazine changed ownership many times in the last few years.
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Finding its Identity It’s all in the Logo The TV Guide logo wasn’t always red and white. Not until 1960, six years into the magazine’s production did the color scheme stick. As the magazine tried to find its identity, the logo appeared as any of the following color combinations: an inverted white box with red font, a black box with white font, a white box with red font, and a navy blue box with white font. The shape of
The TV Guide logo changed and transformed over the years, always reflecting the style of the present television set.
the logo reflects changes in the modern television set. In 1953, the logo appeared more of a circular square. The red box then changed into a circular rectangle to a rounded square. Today’s rounded rectangle logo reflects the new flat screen televisions.
Lack of Variety Covers of TV Guide almost always show a TV celebrity. Over the years, covers rarely feature a variety of ethnicities. Bill Cosby was on the cover of an issue; however, TV celebrities are mainly white. People of different races aren’t found in main articles either. It is not clear why this occurs. If people of all demographics watch television then all people should share equal face time on TV Guide covers.
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The faces on the cover of TV Guide are not culturally diverse. Figures such as Walt Disney (1954), Lucille Ball (1954), and George Reeves (1953). Bill Cosby was the first African American to be on a cover of TV Guide in January1966. (far right).
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From Black and White to Color Galore A January 20, 1968 issue of TV Guide shows barely any color. The page design offers a simple layout. Photos do not engulf pages. One photo runs per page. The layout is a simple two column grid. In contrast, a July 2004 issue of TV Guide looks reminiscent of Soap Opera Digest magazine’s layout. Big The January 20, 1968 issue of TV Guide.
photos in bright primary colors of blue, red and yellow pop out at the reader. Large drop caps start off articles and text wraps around photos of stars. The
digest yells out bold, bright, and loud like television. The magazine still follows a similar twocolumn grid, however, the layout structure is looser. The width of the columns isn’t always equal. In addition, movie guides take up three columns as do feature articles. More pictures and photos fill every page of the 2004 issue. The readers’ eyes struggle over looking at color or a photo first in some articles. Usually the eye follows a normal “Z” formation down the page. The eye bounces from left to right moving from picture to picture to colored font to bolded word. In a special 1997 issue, TV Guide does a great job of moving the viewer’s eye around the page. On the opening spread page of the “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time,” the title stretches over two pages. The beginning of the article draws readers over to the right to read the introduction to the article. Readers must go back to the left page then to read the 100th episode. Readers must draw their eyes downward
The layout of the “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time,” in the July 4, 1997 issue of TV Guide.
towards episode 99 and back to the second page to read number 98.
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This same article could have been done very differently with the title and introduction both located on one page and episodes 100, 99 and 98 on the right-hand page. By not placing the numbers directly below one another in the article, the designers master the art of moving readers through the page. The new TV Guide still draws readers through the page with the use of pictures and color, although colors aren’t as loud anymore. Editorials aren’t too photo heavy and appear wellbalanced. TV Guide uses aesthetically pleasing color choices in articles by employing soft blues, greens, and purples. Many articles guide the eye easily through the page such as an article on actor Tim Roth’s new show, Lie to Me, in the January 19 issue. The reader goes from Roth’s eye to the pictures directly across from his gaze on the next page. The reader then travels diagonally down to the article’s blue article title. The first line of the article is in the same shade of blue Actor Timothy Olyphant’s face splits half way into the gutter in the January 19 issue of TV Guide.
as the title. This design element brings the reader to the start of the article.
In the same issue, TV Guide commits a graphic 101 mistake. A spread in the features well showing actor Timothy Olyphant splits his face in half along the gutter. Usually, such poor photo placement is not a concern in the magazine. Columns in the revamped magazine switch between a two and three-column grid. All articles in the features well use three grids. The magazine also changed its color scheme a few times to help unify the publication as a whole. In November 2008, a black, bold san-serif font accompanied every department in the magazine. The magazine used blue and red fonts often,
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however, the red didn’t match the TV Guide logo. A paler shade of red gave a more feminine appeal to the magazine. In the rest of the publication, TV Guide switches between a variety of san-serif and serif fonts. The entire cover includes san-serif fonts. Some stories in the BOB and FOB are typed in san-serif while others appear in a serif typeface. The only consistencies in the magazine are all stories in the feature well include serif fonts and all captions are written in san-serif. Since TV Guide’s sale to OpenGate, the magazine found a new rhythm to bring the book together. Rather than black bold department titles, the departments now reflect the magazine logo. Readers can find Hot List, Inbox and Watercooler written in white font enclosed in a familiar red box. This design strategy strengthens the unity of TV Guide as a whole because a reader will know what magazine they bought just by glancing at the color scheme of a single department.
A comparison of TV Guide’s old department font (top) to its more recent format that parallels the magazine logo (bottom).
This shows how much power something as simple as color can place on a design. In the rest of the magazine, no longer do a slew of different colors vie for reader’s attention as they did in the digest form. This TV Guide brings the color scheme down to three main colors: black, brick red, and a muted blue-green creation. The magazine probably toned down on its color use to look like less of a gossipy entertainment magazine with flashy colors. Neutral colors help TV Guide appeal to many different age groups. If the magazine used oranges and pinks side to side like in the January 19 issue of US Weekly, TV Guide wouldn’t appeal to everyone in their demographic.
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Advertisements do not intrude in the magazine or feel out of place. Ads do not appear on every other page as in People magazine. This leaves readers to focus more on the content of the magazine. TV Guide comes across as more toned down than its rival magazines with less ads and colors.
Cover Confusion What magazine am I reading? After becoming a large magazine, TV Guide’s cover underwent an identity crisis. The magazine tried too hard to blend
in
with
other
entertainment
weeklies. Covers began to look eerily Two issues of TV Guide look shockingly similar to weekly rival People magazine.
similar to its entertainment competitors People and Us Weekly. In the past, the
magazine always showed a single headshot of a TV celebrity on the cover. TV Guide decided to start placing other people on the cover as well. In doing so, the magazine began cluttering its cover with unnecessary items such as a sidebar along the left side of the magazine. In TV Guide’s April 14 and 21 issues a sidebar containing three cover lines with three accompanying photos appeared on the left side of the cover. People also displays three cover lines and photos. In trying to set the
Other TV Guide cover concepts with cover line box across the top (right) and cover lines without a color foreground (below).
magazine apart, it seems foolish of TV Guide to look like their entertainment competitor.
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In the May 19 issue TV Guide runs their sidebar across the top of the cover. The following month, the magazine returns to running the sidebar along the left or right side of the cover. This time TV Guide omits the solid colored box. This design appears until the August 25 issue. Up until this point, colors on the cover come from nowhere in particular. Sometimes they compliment an actor’s wardrobe such as on the cover of the June 9 issue. The cover line colors come from actress Kyra Segwick’s pink lips and lavender skirt. June and July TV Guide’s cover looks different again. Every cover line is a different color on the June 30 “Hot Bod” issue. Cover lines run in blue, green, purple and red on the July 21 cover aside Miley Cyrus. Although multiple colors run on the cover until November, the sidebar
TV Guide’s Hot Bod and Miley Cyrus covers show the magazine’s extraneous usage of a myriad of colors.
feature does not return. TV Guide begins to find its identity after OpenGate Capital buys the book in October 2008. The magazine now reverts to a one image multiple themed cover, a concept its digest size always used, rather than a multi-image multi-themed cover. As of late November, readers no longer see multiple colored cover lines on the cover. TV Guide becomes simpler and begins to set itself apart from other weeklies. Starting with the November 17 issue TV Guide uses a yellow and white font for the main title and cover lines. The design comes off as simple yet effective as the magazine continues to use this simpler format. Readers no longer question what magazine they look at. The cover does not look like People or any other crowded weekly. TV Guide found that simpler is better.
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The End of TV Guide? Many critics began bashing TV Guide late in 2008 after the magazine was sold for a dollar to Open Gate Capital. Folio jabbed at the magazine asking if the dollar sale was like “paying the garbage man to take the trash away?” Folio then continued to point out that the magazine’s revamp to a large
Today, TV Guide Canada solely exists as an internet website. Could the same hold true for TV Guide in the near future?
magazine proved costly with losses of over $20 million in 2007. The New York Times released a story in December 2008 reflecting on TV Guide’s change from a listings magazine to a competitor among entertainment weeklies. The article questioned whether TV Guide can survive with its dwindling circulation numbers. The magazine declined in circulation from 20 million in the 80s to 2.9 million today. Robin Steinberg, director of print investment and activation at MediaVest, which places ads for clients like Kraft and Wal-Mart, says the entertainment category is overcrowded. Advertisers already cater to other weekly entertainments such as People, Entertainment Weekly, OK, Lifestyle, Star and more. Birnbaum, defends the survival of her magazine as an entertainment weekly. Among other entertainment magazines, TV Guide ranks second behind People. People’s total audience is 42.8 million while TV Guide’s is 20.7 million. The magazine leads over other entertainment competitors with total audiences of 10-12 million such as Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, and Star. “With the exception of People,” says Birnbaum, “we’re much bigger than the rest.” As for the declining numbers since the 80s, Birnbaum says the staff is happy with three million readers. “I think you can’t look at it historically. People talk about TV Guide as a failing
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enterprise and I would argue that. Newspaper circulations aren’t what they were. TV viewership isn’t what it was. It’s important to look at current models and standings. Three million readers is highly competitive.” With more money conscience consumers in light of the economic downturn, readers are less apt to shell out the extra $2.99 to purchase something as unnecessary as a magazine from a store. While most magazines fear the idea of fewer readers, Chambers sees an opportunity for TV Guide to draw in more viewers. “Especially in this economy, people are going to stay home and watch TV,” she says. Chambers bets that people who watch TV will still want a copy of TV Guide alongside them. Fifty-six years later and TV Guide reads differently. The advertising, its content, size, message and style of writing have all changed. Without its electronic assets, TV Guide’s new owners, Opengate Capital will need to prove the magazine can survive by itself. Time will tell whether a revamp in 2005 and numerous ownerships helped TV Guide or dug its grave. Changing to a larger format didn’t work for TV Guide Canada. The publication may eventually become an internet only magazine; however, since it’s currently the second largest selling entertainment magazine, TV Guide will continue to please readers for now. With other TV guides on the Internet and cable television, TV Guide may eventually rid of its listings altogether, taking Annenberg’s creation one step further away from his advocacy digest that served as a check on the television medium. TV Guide will fully become an entertainment magazine, serving the TV fan.
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