In Search Of TV Guide 10.0
by Phyllis Fine, , Staff Writer, June 15, 2016
The incredibly fragmented world of TV/video programming now resembles the Internet: a mishmash of more content than you could ever hope to watch in a single lifetime.
But there’s no single location where all this programming resides, and no search engine to keep track of it all — oh, wait, is there? Google’s search function will soon offer what it is calling live TV listings. “So now, when you’re looking for [an episode of] ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ we’ll show you not just the app where you can find the latest episode, but also which channel you can tune your TV to later in the evening to watch it,” Google President Daniel Alegre announced in April at the NAB Show in Las Vegas.
That’s still a pretty limited application. Good luck if, like me, you’re wondering when “The Affair” will be back on Showtime (OK, Nov. 20, you find out through persistent Googling) — or if you’re tired of discovering when your guilty pleasure, Bravo’s “Below Deck: Mediterranean” reality show, is airing again, only because you’ve seen bus ads proclaiming the date.
Technology can only do so much right now to curate TV/video content, and sometimes it breaks down. “Even the DVR has betrayed me; suddenly one day, out of the blue, it will decide to stop recording shows for which I have a season pass,” says Gary Holmes, who writes about TV for MediaDailyNews. “This happened recently with both ‘Saturday Night Live’ and
‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,’ and I missed several weeks of shows before realizing they weren’t on vacation.”
Of course there’s the human touch, oh-so-necessary to help make sense of what’s coming entertainment-wise. For that, I have my favorite TV critics: MediaPost’s bunch, including Adam Buckman, and Hitfix’s Alan Sepinwall.
And now there’s New York Times Watching, a twice-weekly newsletter showcasing what’s worth screening as filtered through the highly subjective and smart lens of Emily Lyons. Her wit, wisdom and commitment to the TV screen was evident in a previous gig, a Vulture column subtitled “Your Pressing TV Questions, Answered” (Sample: “What shows should engaged parents introduce their child to growing up that would really make for a cultural education?”)
Going back to dead-tree products, still-standing TV Guide just announced its latest revamp, set to be on newsstands June 16. What seems newest is the inclusion of streaming content in its “What’s Worth Watching” section.
Still, presumably the heart of the pub — its listing block featuring only cable and broadcast shows, broken down by time and networks from ABC To WGNAmerica — has not been reworked to add non-linear listings of what’s on Netflix, Hulu, etc.
So maybe the best-of-all-worlds version of TV Guide would be a DVR-computer thingamabob combining technology with the human touch, automatically downloading columns and recommendations from your favorite writers, and giving you the chance to sample suggested programs/videos and then add them to your watch list.
Until then, I’ll continue to keep on the alert for those bus ads about “Below Deck.”
MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily
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