Last Updated: September 23, 1999
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TV books
A top journalist and a veteran at overhauling newspaper
TV books on why they’re important
As the executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and managing editor
of The New York Times, Gene Roberts was at the center of some of the nation’s
most prominent journalism.
And, at both papers, he helped overhaul their TV books.
The TV book projects taught Roberts, now a University of Maryland professor
of journalism, that newspapers have more control over the quality of the
listings than they may think.
In Philadelphia, he launched a TV book improvement project with reader
involvement. The paper invited a dozen interested readers to help improve
the accuracy of the listings.
A panelist had to phone in, or send a postcard, the day an error appeared.
Each participant got a gift, such as a dictionary. The eagle-eyed panelist
who caught the most mistakes in the listings would win a VCR or television.
The Inquirer used the information over months to change the paper’s
deadlines to include late programming changes and to strong-arm local TV
stations to cooperate more on improving the listings.
Roberts said he launched similar changes in deadlines and accuracy improvements
at the Times.
Readers helped guide those changes.
“My experience as an editor was that on everything virtually except
TV and financial listings I learned to distrust focus groups,” he said.
Customers notice the improvements. Research shows that the more accurate
the listings, the more TV Guide’s penetration faded, he said.
Other observations:
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Roberts stresses information-packed listings over the “bells & whistles”
of TV coverage that dazzle some editors.
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Papers too often fail to zone their listings to account for differences
in cable providers. “Boy, is that a mistake,” he said. Research shows readership
of TV listings was 10 percent higher in areas with service-specific listings,
he said.
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Are newspaper listings dying? Not at all. “Any newspaper that abandons
its grids for something without specific timeline information is going
to have an interesting day,” he said.
Not all editors understand what’s at stake, Roberts says. The TV book is
an important — and used — part of the newspaper.
“There’s a tendency to just sort of neglect it and not give it a high
level of support and attention and I think that’s a mistake.”
