Who owns TV Guide?
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TV Guide is a bi-weekly American magazine that provides television program listings information as well as television-related news, celebrity interviews and gossip, film reviews, crossword puzzles, and, in some issues, horoscopes. The print magazine is owned by NTVB Media, while its digital properties are controlled by the CBS Interactive division of CBS Corporation; the "TV Guide" name and associated editorial content from the publication are licensed by CBS Interactive for use on the website and mobile app through an agreement with the magazine's parent subsidiary TVGM Holdings, Inc.
TV Guide
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A separate IPG system, "TV Guide On Screen", was a brand name for Guide Plus+, a build of software featured in products such as televisions, DVD and digital video recorders, and other digital television devices providing on-screen program listings. First marketed in the mid-1990s, it was originally owned by Gemstar-TV Guide International before being acquired by the Rovi Corporation on December 7, 2007 in a $2.8 billion cash and stock deal. From November 2012 to April 2013, Rovi gradually discontinued broadcast transmission of the Guide Plus+ service.National television listings magazines using the "TV Guide" name (verbatim or translated into the magazine's language of origin) are also published in other countries, but none of these are believed to be affiliated with the North American publication:
TV Guide
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Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. was a media company that licensed interactive program guide technology to multichannel video programming distributors such as cable and satellite television providers, and consumer electronics manufacturers; video recorder scheduling codes under brands such as VCR Plus; as well as serving as publishers of "TV Guide" magazine as well as operators of tvguide.com, owners of TV Guide Network and TVG Network, and provided various related services. On May 2, 2008, Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Macrovision Solutions Corporation, which later changed its name to Rovi Corporation on July 16, 2009.
Gemstar-TV Guide International
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On October 5, 1999, Gemstar International Group Ltd., the maker of the VCR Plus+ device and schedule system (whose channel and program codes for VCRs using the system for timed recordings were incorporated into the magazine's listings in 1988), and which incidentally was partially owned by News Corporation, purchased United Video Satellite Group; the two companies had previously been involved in a legal battle over the intellectual property rights for their respective interactive program guide systems, VCR Plus+ and TV Guide On Screen, that began in 1994. That month, "TV Guide" debuted a 16-page insert into editions in 22 markets with large Hispanic populations titled "TV Guide en Español", which provided programming information from national Spanish language networks (such as Univision and Telemundo) as well as special sections with reviews of the week's notable programs. The magazine discontinued the insert in March 2000 due to difficulties resulting from confusion by advertisers over its marketing as "the first weekly Spanish-language magazine," despite its structure as an insert within the main "TV Guide" publication.
TV Guide
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In January 2009, the magazine cut several networks from its grid listings – including MTV and DIY Network – citing "space concerns"; however, two cuts, those of The CW and TV Guide Network, were seen as suspicious and arbitrary, as the magazine carries several channels which have the same schedule night after night or have low viewership and could have easily been cut, while several Fox-owned networks continued to be listed due to agreements with the former News Corporation ownership. It is likely that TV Guide Network's removal from "TV Guide"s listings was related to the "divorce" of the website and network from the magazine. In early February 2009, The CW and MTV were brought back to the listings after the magazine received numerous emails protesting the move; as a consequence, listings for several low-rated networks were removed. The other channels previously incorporated into the listings before their removal were slowly re-added, until TV Guide Network's schedule returned to the listings pages in June 2010 with its logo prominent within the grids as part of the deal with Lionsgate's TV Guide division. Under OpenGate ownership, "TV Guide" slowly returned to profitability mainly through cost reductions instituted by its venture capital parent, making significant staffing reductions and switching to bi-weekly editions full-time, reducing the number of issues it published to 29 per year.
TV Guide
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TV Insider is a website promoted internally as an online "guide to...TV" published by "TV Guide"s parent holding company TVGM Holdings, LLC, which launched in January 2015. The website features reviews and interviews from critics and columnists (such as Matt Roush) who write for the print magazine.
TV Guide
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In addition to "TV Guide" and its flagship newspaper "The Philadelphia Inquirer", Triangle Publications also owned the "Philadelphia Daily News"; ten radio and six television stations (WFIL AM-FM-TV in Philadelphia, WNHC AM-FM-TV in New Haven, Connecticut, KFRE AM-FM-TV in Fresno, California, WNBF AM-FM-TV in Binghamton, New York, WFBG AM-FM-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania and WLYH-TV in Lancaster–Lebanon, Pennsylvania); "The Daily Racing Form"; "The Morning Telegraph"; "Seventeen"; and various cable television interests. (It was under Triangle's ownership of WFIL-TV that "American Bandstand" came to popularity, which, in turn, led to host Dick Clark ascending to become a major television personality.) Triangle Publications sold its Philadelphia newspapers to Knight Newspapers in 1969, its radio and television stations during the early 1970s to Capital Cities Communications (the television stations that are now known as KFSN-TV and WPVI-TV were subsequently acquired by ABC through its 1986 merger with Capital Cities) and various other interests, retaining only "TV Guide", "Seventeen" and "The Daily Racing Form".
TV Guide
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Because most cable systems published their own listing magazine reflecting their channel lineup, and now had a separate guide channel or an electronic program guide that can be activated by remote and provide the same information in a more detailed manner – with additional competition coming in the late 1990s from websites that also specialize in providing detailed television program information (such as TVGuide.com, then jointly operated with "TV Guide Magazine", and Zap2It), a printed listing of programming in a separate magazine became less valuable. The sheer amount and diversity of cable television programming made it hard for "TV Guide" to provide listings of the extensive array of programming that came directly over the cable system. "TV Guide" also could not match the ability of the cable box to store personalized listings. Nevertheless, beginning with the September 12–18, 1998, issue, the magazine added several new channels to many of its editions, including those that had previously been mentioned only in a foreword on the channel lineup page as well as those that were available mainly on digital cable and satellite; although most of these newly added channels were placed within the prime time grids, only a few (such as Animal Planet and MSNBC) were also incorporated into the log listings.
TV Guide
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The acquisition made NTVB Media the largest owner of consumer television publications in the United States, with a combined reach of more than 20 million readers. NTVB already owned "TV Weekly" and "Channel Guide", both of which provide national editorial content and – through syndication agreements with 160+ newspapers throughout the country, in which they are distributed as supplementary publications incorporated within each paper's Sunday editions – listings customized for individual regions (the company began distributing its listings magazines in this manner in 2008, as newspapers began to cease publication of their proprietary television listings magazines due to cost-cutting measures spurred by declining circulation and revenue); it also publishes listings publications for pay television providers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Dish Network. As such, it is undetermined whether NTVB will reach deals to distribute "TV Guide" to newspapers on a separate basis or extend the name to its existing television publications. Staff with "TV Guide" and NTVB's other titles will collaborate on feature content included in the respective magazines, while the company will fold advertising sales for the magazine with its existing television magazine titles.
TV Guide
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In June 1998, the "TV Guide" brand and magazine were acquired by United Video Satellite Group, the parent company of the Prevue Channel – a channel first launched in 1981 as the Electronic Program Guide network, that was carried by cable and some satellite television providers and was originally formatted to feature a scrolling program guide, short segments featuring previews of upcoming programs, and promos and short-form film trailers for programs airing on various channels. Its new owners promptly rebranded Prevue as the TV Guide Channel on February 1, 1999. With the rebranding, some of the hourly segments featured on the channel at that point were renamed after features in the magazine, including "TV Guide Close-Up", "TV Guide Sportsview" (which was formatted more similarly to the listings section's sports guide than the color column of that name) and "TV Guide Insider". After Gemstar's acquisition of "TV Guide", the channel began to shift towards airing full-length programs featuring celebrity gossip and movie-focused talk shows alongside the program listings; the channel was rebranded as the TV Guide Network in 2007.
TV Guide