TV Listings Magazines
carl.waring
Posts: 35,695 Forum Member
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Another thread has got me thinking about this.
Up to the early 90s (1991 was mentioned but I don't know if that was the actual year) there was the Radio Times for BBC programmes and TV Times for ITV/C4.
That all changed in when that rule was relaxed and, not only could ITV listings appear in RT and vice versa, but other TV listings mags were allowed for the first time.
But I'm not sure how or why ie Who decided that should happen? Was it commercial companies (maybe including ITV?) who lobbied to be able to produce their own?
I remember it happening, with the lead-up to it being teased by RT, just not the background as to why and how.
I'm sure someone on here will be able to tell me.
Thanks.
Up to the early 90s (1991 was mentioned but I don't know if that was the actual year) there was the Radio Times for BBC programmes and TV Times for ITV/C4.
That all changed in when that rule was relaxed and, not only could ITV listings appear in RT and vice versa, but other TV listings mags were allowed for the first time.
But I'm not sure how or why ie Who decided that should happen? Was it commercial companies (maybe including ITV?) who lobbied to be able to produce their own?
I remember it happening, with the lead-up to it being teased by RT, just not the background as to why and how.
I'm sure someone on here will be able to tell me.
Thanks.
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This was the result of extensive lobbying by other publishers, the most prominent being Time Out who had regularly been calling for it, complaining that the Radio and TV Times were a monopoly. Up until that point, the broadcasters held the copyright in their listings and the newspapers were only allowed to print that day's listings in that day's paper (and the next day's on Saturday).
The 1988 Broadcasting Act changed all that, and ruled that from 1st March 1991, the broadcasters would be obliged to give their listings to whoever requested them, but they would be allowed to charge for them. Hence the Radio and TV Times were able to cover all channels, several new magazines launched and the papers could now do weekly guides.
Daily newspapers were only allowed to show that day's programming; weekend and local papers usually gave a couple of days. The only exceptions I remember, were the Christmas holidays, where newspapers were allowed to print three or four days of programmes.
They were very strict about this, because I remember our local evening paper used to print schedules for Saturday and Sunday in Friday's paper, but then after a while they announced that for legal reasons they could no longer include Sunday's schedules and only did highlights instead.
As I say, it was a long-running battle, as The Radio Times Story by Tony Currie points out (a book well worth getting hold of if you're interested in broadcasting history), a publisher tried to launch an all-channel magazine as far back as 1974 but was scared off by potential lawsuits from the BBC and ITV. So it was a long-standing greivance from other publishers. In 1982 Time Out briefly published TV listings to coincide with the launch of Channel Four, and also at that time there was the launch of a bizarre magazine called TV Choice, unrelated to the current publication of course, which attempted to get around the Beeb and ITV refusing to gve their schedules away by simply guessing what might be on - https://twitter.com/woodg31/status/1458158536861626376 - and that lasted a few weeks before falling foul of both legal issues and lack of interest.
There's also a bit about TV listings in the one and only edition of the Virgin Television Yearbook in 1985, talking about the continued clamour for the end of the duopoly to allow new magazines. In it they talk about how the association of independent producers - who in those days relied almost entirely on Channel Four of course - were campaigning for a change, because they didn't think they were very well served by TV Times who were more interested in the big ITV shows and didn't give C4 and its programmes enough prominence, so they were lobbying for it as well. So it was seemingly bound to happen, but it took ages to become law.
Of course, although TV Times began alongside the start of ITV in 1955, for the first decade or so, it was up to the individual ITV company to decide who published their schedules and although in many regions that was the TV Times, other companies did their own magazines (helped by many of them being part-owned by publishing companies). But in the franchise round in 1968, it was decided there would be a single national magazine for all regions, which would be the TV Times. The one region that was allowed to carry on their own magazine was Channel because it was felt they needed every bit of revenue they could get. That survived past deregulation in March 1991, when it started carrying all other channels like every other magazine, but folded in October because there was now too much competition, Tony Currie pointing out the only thing you needed a Channel-specific listings guide for as opposed to the umpteen other guides now available was to find out when Channel Report was on, which you could probably guess.
Remember being pretty amazed when we got Sky Digital in 1998 and seeing the, for the time at least, snappy interactive guide.
Has the amount of articles in these magazines increased to compensate for this? Still spot these on the shelves when I’m about and about, Radio Times seem to have articles on decent shows, but the TV Times cover is always either something from some trashy soap or Paul Schofield’s smug face, I just look at them and shudder.
It's not just about what you want though. I don't buy them either, but hundreds of thousands do, so what's the problem ?
TV Choice, the market leader, still sells a million copies a week. What's On TV around 700k and Radio Times 450k.
The whole sector sells in excess of 2.7million magazines a week.
I'd suggest that even if they are redundant, the market is still significant.
I buy TV Choice every week
so much easier to mark up my choices with a pen that on a digital EPG
EPGs are great if you want to know what's on 8-10 channels in the next hour and a half, but they're not very helpful for planning a week's viewing across multiple channels. Nothing on-screen currently gets close to replacing the ease of being able to see the whole day across several channels 'at a glance' on a single page.
One oddity I recall was the Evening Standard (and Evening News) in the London area used to print the listings for the evening's TV (from 6pm or 7pm IIRC) and the next day's daytime listings up to that point.
Exactly.
The other thing the TV guides tend to provide is an overview of some of the series appearing on the streaming platforms.
It's the reason for buying one of the Saturday papers which not only gives you a guide for the week but also a few pointers on things you might otherwise miss on the streaming services.
The Yorkshire Evening Post used to do that too.
Now the Evening Post can be bought at breakfast time I doubt they still do that.
The same with the Reading Evening Post. Primary region was London I think, with ATV and Southern in the 'variation' listings
They didn't make an immediate change. BBC 3 is sharing a column with ITV 2 to the right of Channel 5 on the Freeview pages.
Interesting thread.
Radio Times is now £3.80 a week.
There is a 6 month deal for £60 which works out at £2.31 per issue.
I was thinking more of TV Choice etc, they're under £1.