R.I.P., TV Guide (1953-2005)

There goes my childhood.

Gemstar-TV Guide International's announcement Tuesday that TV Guide would essentially cease to exist in October wasn't totally a surprise -- the magazine is already a shell of what it used to be, and in a way had already been killed by its owners.

But still, the magazine didn't have to die this way. And as a kid who collected TV Guides (actually, I still do -- told ya I was a geek!), I took the news hard.

Growing up, I constantly annoyed my parents on road trips, as I forced them to stop in each town to buy that city's TV Guide edition. I was fascinated by call letters, channel positions, and network affiliations. Not to mention program schedules and how each market stacked up against each other. (Again, I know -- geek.) Soon I had amassed a pretty formidable collection of TV Guides from all over the country.

More recently, with the advent of eBay, I began buying older issues, collecting TV Guides from the 50s and 60s and marveling at the pre-cable era. I can spend hours in old book stores studying classic issues, reading up on old schedules and program descriptions.

Up until the 1990s, TV Guide was seen as a utility -- a requirement to make sure you were getting the most out of your TV viewing.

But in the last few years, on-screen program guides bit into TV Guide's domain... and rather than aggressively respond, TV Guide cut back on its listings. As a result, readers who still depended on the magazine's listings no longer found it useful, and left in droves. Circulation plummeted.

Had I been in charge, I would have dumped the digest size, expanding to regular magazine shape (giving it more room for listings), and concentrated on comprehensive listings for the top 50 cable channels. That way, you'd still be seen as the TV bible, without getting bogged down in trying to list everything.

And I would have freshened up the editorial, keeping it newsy but with a little more attitude. But whatever I did, I would have maintained the localism. That's what made TV Guide unique in a field of national magazines.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. The new TV Guide, which indeed will dump the small size and morph into a regular magazine, is dropping most of its listings, and will eliminate all 140 regional editions in favor of two national editions (Eastern and Pacific time -- sorry, Mountain and Central folk). The focus will now solely be on features about TV and entertainment.

Goodbye, TV Guide -- I don't know how much life you had left in ya, but you'll be missed anyway.