Digital Devices For You

This Time of Year I Miss TV Guide

I remember the first time I went to a grocery store and couldn’t find a TV Guide to look at while I waited in line. I scanned the other aisles thinking that perhaps they were just sold out in this aisle. But I didn’t see any.

TV Guide became a casualty in this modern age of television. Satellite and digital cable have their own on-screen program guides. Regular cable TV has a TV listing channel. Who needs a printed TV Guide anymore?

But this is really the time of year that I miss the publication. I collected TV Guides for about two years and have boxes full of them. It’s pretty interesting to look back at them. They really give a snapshot of the time and era they were printed. I would’ve kept collecting them but my money needed to go to other things so I stopped. But I still picked up two or three issues this time of year.

I looked forward to the “New Shows” issue every year. TV Guide always wrote about the new shows with passion and showed a dedication to excellent TV. I valued their opinions and used it to help me choose how to spend my viewing time.

They also published an issue focusing on “Returning Shows” and one about “New Kid Shows.”

I like looking back at these issues and seeing which shows didn’t survive. Some great shows never really caught on. And some horrible shows manage to stay on the air. That always happens.

But now I don’t really know what to do with this new season of fall premiers. I don’t have the TV Guide to help me navigate through the good and the bad. I only have rabbit ears so I don’t get a TV listings channel. And I only get seven channels so I couldn’t even watch some of the new shows anyway. But I would like to read about them and add them to my collection.

Read more...