2009-07-27
post/150087721
quote 13:15:00
“ I understand the need for newspapers to save money, but I’m not sure that this excuse really washes. Clicking through an EPG is a slow and clumsy way to find things I might want to watch; whereas with a printed TV guide I can look at a whole evening’s programming on one or two pages - and crucially get a critical view of what might be worth watching (or recording). ”
Martin Deutsch critiquing the Observer for killing its TV guide while saying that readers are using EPGs and the Internet rather than print. A couple of quick thoughts.
- The Observer’s coverage duplicates the Guardian Guide. How many people buy one, but not the other? The Guide always seemed better to me anyway.
- TV is becoming temporally unhooked. The decades-old model of getting people to tune in for a certain time is being eaten away by the fact I don’t have to record things; iPlayer (and similar services) mean I can catch up (as I did with Torchwood, when it became evident it was better than it had been). In this model, maybe what we need isn’t more TV previews, but more reviews.
