Last Updated: September 23, 1999
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Keeping them useful in a confusing landscape
“Cheers” topped the Nielsens. Donahue ruled the day. Carson reigned
at night. And the Syracuse Herald American was launching its first Sunday
TV book.
It was 1983. About half of the households in mid-size markets like Syracuse
subscribed to cable.
The new TV Cable Guide carried a 13-channel prime-time grid. Promotional
ads promised it would help readers find their way through the “jungle of
TV-watching choices” they faced. It was a quarter-fold with lots of features
and photos, and ran between 52 and 64 pages.
It seemed like a big deal at the time. But TV-books are like computers.
Today’s big deal is passe tomorrow. New versions, upgrades and major redesigns
are part of the cost of doing business. Trouble is, while computers kept
getting smaller and cheaper, TV books got fatter and more expensive.
The size of the prime-time grid in the Syracuse TV book more than tripled
between 1983 and 1993. As new channel listings ate up more and more news
hole, the number of features and photos decreased. Still, the page count
kept going up. The Herald American TV book was running upward of 80 pages
by 1995. TV book ad lineage was flat. Newsprint prices weren’t.
A year later, The Syracuse Newspapers introduced a completely redesigned
book. Instead of a quarter-fold produced by a contract printer, the paper
came out with a book that was slightly smaller than standard tabloid size,
stitched and trimmed with new equipment installed in its own plant. The
new book added daily highlights, specialized listings and retooled logs
and grids.
The changes saved money and newsprint. A small percentage of readers
said they preferred the smaller size; most welcomed the new larger book
as an improvement.
It seemed like a big deal at the time. But a new round of cable channel
expansion is forcing editors in Syracuse and around the country to go back
to the TV-book drawing board.
In the spring of 1999, “ER” tops the Nielsens. Cable is practically
everywhere. Syracuse’s TV-book grid carries 64 channels. And Time-Warner,
which now owns all but two of the cable systems in Central New York, plans
to add 90 channels by the end of the summer.
Sound familiar?
Every newspaper TV book in America has spent the last decade trying
to keep pace with change, and there’s no sign of a let-up. The explosion
in the number of cable channels presents the biggest challenge. Roller-coaster
newsprint prices, flat Sunday readership and the growing popularity of
online TV listings only complicate the situation.
Adapting to the changes in the TV listings business has come down to
a series of choices. Here are some of the key TV-book decisions editors
in Syracuse have made over the years, and some of the questions they and
other newspaper TV-book editors now must face:
Grid or log
Before introducing its first TV book in 1983, all TV listings were in
log form, the traditional paragraph of bold information and light-face
description. When the Herald American added a prime-time grid to its new
Sunday book, all 13 channels fit nicely in a dollar-bill-size space.
The growth of the grids both in size and popularity begged some questions:
Was it necessary to repeat the listing in both grid and log? Did readers
have a clear preference for one or the other?
In Syracuse, enough readers weighed in on either side of this debate
to convince editors that the way to keep readers happy was to choose to
continue publishing listings in both grid and log form. That decision has
been reaffirmed several times over the years, largely in the belief that
a sure way to alienate readers is to take something away from them.
Will the decision to run both grids and logs for prime time survive
the summer of 1999? Let’s just say at this point it’s one of the issues
on the table as the deadline for adding 92 new channels nears.
Comprehensive or selective listings
Do readers expect their newspaper TV book to include every show on every
channel, 24 hours a day? In Syracuse, the answer so far has been, “yes.”
Some channels, like C-SPAN and The Weather Channel, are excluded from the
grid, but all are included in the 24-hour log.
At what point does it become impractical for newspapers to continue
providing comprehensive listings? Likewise, will readers be so overwhelmed
by the sheer number of TV watching options that they would welcome a more
selective approach in their TV book? When and if that time comes, what
gets left out? Middle-of-the-night listings? The least popular channels?
Features or function
Do readers want puzzles, columns and stories about TV celebrities in
their TV book? Or is it all about well organized, easy to use listings?
In Syracuse, function takes the upper hand. Except for a 12-inch Q&A
and a soaps column that was grandfathered into the book, every element
in the Herald American book functions as a way of helping readers decide
what to watch this week.
Tab format or quarter-fold
The Syracuse Newspapers’ decision to go with a tab format was partly
an economic one. That size could be printed, stitched and trimmed in house;
a quarter-fold could not.
The increasing number of channels argues in favor of larger-format books
for the simple reason that a larger page can accommodate a larger grid.
Smaller-format books increasingly require readers to flip pages to see
one evening’s TV listings.
Editor- or listings-vendor-controlled
If the devil is in the details, then editing TV listings must be hell.
Editors who don’t enter the inferno and decide exactly what information
to include, in what order and in what circumstances must face this fact:
If you don’t edit your TV book, your TV listings vendor will do it for
you.
The editors in Syracuse insisted on customizing virtually every element
in the book. Highlights, for example, had to be a certain length, in a
certain order. They had to represent both broadcast and cable offerings.
Non-specific programming, such as music videos on MTV, don’t appear in
the listings, but specific MTV programs do. One- and two-star movies get
the briefest description; three- and four-star films are described more
fully. And on and on through literally hundreds of devilish details.
If newspapers are going to continue to serve readers as their primary
source of TV-listing information, more tough choices lie ahead. Editors
who are willing to wade into the weeds of TV-book fine print stand the
best chance of finding a sensible way to guide readers through today’s
“jungle of TV-watching choices.”
Pollock is a managing editor for The Syracuse Newspapers.
