End of an Era

I have let my subscription to TV Guide lapse. I first subscribed over 36 years ago, when I got the first television of my very own, a 12" black and white portable. (I think it's still working. I gave it to a friend of mine when I got my second TV, a 19" color set. She's blind, and doesn't use it, but she has it around just in case a visitor wants to watch something.) I have continued the subscription pretty much continually ever since then--though I remember one period when I didn't renew, because it was being delivered too late. I just bought it at the supermarket.

There are two reasons why I no longer find it useful. First of all, it doesn't tell me what's on. With the advent of cable television, TV Guide was no longer able to provide complete listings. They did try. They published separate editions for each cable system, at least here in New York. But there still wasn't enough space for all of the minor channels.

Now they've given up, in favor of their online guide. But even there, they don't give detailed listings for things like the local access channels. These are available on the on-screen guide from the cable company itself--which has made all external guides pretty much redundant. The only reason I go to the online TV Guide is because it is much easier to do a search there than on the television.

Still, the hard-copy TV guide has a lot of articles about various shows--which I never read. Why? because of the second reason I'm not renewing my subscription: I just don't watch that much TV any more. There are no series I keep up with--not even the ones on HBO, that I did for a while. We do like to watch some of the Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery! programs on PBS. But otherwise the only time I have the TV on is to watch a recorded movie or for very specific shows: a sports event here, an awards show there, occasionally a documentary of some sort--though my wife watches more of them than I do.

So a TV Guide subscription has become rather useless, one more thing to stuff the mailbox and clutter up the apartment. I used to be a huge TV fan, watching dozens of hours a week, keeping two VCRs busy. Now, I doubt I average even an hour a day, not counting recorded movies. It is the end of an era.