Wednesday, June 17, 2015

I Miss the Old Days

TV Guide (October 21-27, 1978)

11 comments:

Deb said...

That was great! What a trip down memory lane. I was in college and working, do I didn't watch as much tv, but my sister had a huge crush on John Travolta (still does, for that matter) and I remember her being bummed by how he was basically written out of "Welcome Back Kotter" (even while the ads for the show figured Travolta more prominently than before).

Ah TV Guide, how could I have navigated 1970s pop culture without you?

Jeff Meyerson said...

I miss them too, but some of the TV movies were as bad then as the Lifetime "women in jeopardy" movies of today.

Jeff

Unknown said...

We subscribed to TV GUIDE throughout the '70s, and I regret not saving any of the issues.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I kept the Fall Preview issues of TV Guide for decades until (shock! gasp!) recently realizing that, 1. I never look at them and 2. I can get the same information online (granted, without all the ads and such) and 3. it was my attempt to "declutter" so out they went.

And keep off my lawn!

Jeff

Unknown said...

The ads are the best part. I could never get rid of such treasures.

Jeff Meyerson said...

There was a lot of real crap on back then, along with the goodies, including Charlie's Angels, Love Boat, Gilligan's Island and the like.

And no, those are not the goodies.

Jeff

Deb said...

For over 40 years, I kept the Oscar night preview pages from the TV Guide. I have them in a scrapbook. Then, a few years back, I couldn't find the TV Guide anymore. I guess it's still being published, but I haven't been able to find it at any local grocery or drug store.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Deb, we were appalled to find TV Guide went to a People-size (and style?) format a few years ago and no longer even had all the listings 24/7. We saw it with the other magazines in Barnes & Noble.

For a number of years (1970's and '80's, probably) we subscribed, but then it started arriving late, after the week had started, and what use was that? I'd buy it on the newsstand.

All things change, I guess.

Jeff

Todd Mason said...

Well, as the ex-TV GUIDE employee at the table, I Was There for the last years of local editions in digest-sized format, and the specialized full-sized cable-system specific editions. My first assignment was a group of stations in Chicago and Northern Indiana.

A spectacularly unsuccessful magazine called INSIDE tV was the stalking horse for the new format for TV GUIDE prime, in 2005, as the localized editions, which had kept TVG a major force in publishing for most of its run, were seen as unsustainable. Foolishly, to the degree it was done so abruptly, the New DisImproved TVG was introduced, and the magazine started to lose millions of subscribers. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/business/media/inside-tv-magazine-to-publish-final-issue.html?_r=0

The articles aren't much worse than they were, but they are worse (and certainly you don't see interesting outside writers at all any longer), and the listings are only national broadcast network and cable rides for nighttime viewing...go to the websites for fuller coverage, rather clumsily arrayed.

I like to think I helped the organization keep its contract with PBS.org over my years there, as primarily the national public-broadcasting reporter.

Todd Mason said...

PhillyRadioGeek who comments on the page is Brian Arnold, who worked for about four years or so on YVG in the late digest years and was one of the first Pax network reporters, though not, I think, the first (the network is now Ion Television). Brian contributes when he can to Tuesday's Overlooked, and is trying to help someone find a title to one of those atrocious Lifetime made for tv films.

1978 was one of the worst years for national tv programming I've lived through and can remember, despite some decent fare such as LOU GRANT and THE PAPER CHASE and a small slew of PBS series such as VISIONS and INTErNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL with Jean Marsh as host. THE BOB NEWHART SHOW and THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW wrapped in the spring, and ALL IN THE FAMILY was limping to its end the next spring...the CBS powerhouse Saturday was long gone.

Todd Mason said...

I went and refreshed my memory of what was on national tv in 10/78...and I had managed to forget WKRP and ROCKFORD somehow, and I did rather like SOAP as well as BARNEY MILLER...and the syndicated SECOND CITY TELEVISION. And there were series I didn't catch up with I might've liked if I'd seen them, or watched them more, such as THE EDDIE CAPRA MYSTERIES and THE WHITE SHADOW. But the worst of 1978 was omnipresent and much of it was Hugely popular, in a manner Kardashians can only dream of.

NOVA was the best nonfiction series, but there were a few good ones, including the watered-down primetime version of WEEKEND on NBC, and 60 MINUTES and CBS REPORTS at times in there slots; THE WILD, WILD WORLD OF ANIMALS series from Time/Life in commercial syndication wrapped up that year. SNEAK PREVIEWS was still novel.