TV listings?

Is it just my chintzy-ass paper, or is the AP doing away with moving TV listings every day? They didn't move one at all yesterday, and it didn't move today with its usual cohorts (On This Date, time schedule). We do have the advance one with the entire week, but that gets updated even less than the daily ones (which had "Minnesota vs. Team TBA" even the day before the divisional playoffs).

 

Yea, we're probably one of the most understaffed mid-size dailies in the country and we were just asked to do TV three days out, and when it's a slow sports day ... A week out! So that eats up a ton of time for us. Anyone have anything faster than TVGuide.com?

 

Not trying to be a dick here, but does anyone--even the only people left who still read newspapers--rely on the paper to find out what is on TV? I'd have to think at this point everyone has figured out the channel guide.

 

Not the geriatrics that make up our subscriber base. They want me to sit there and explain how TV works.

 

zap2it.com with a sports search for daily checks.
Try local pro team schedules for RSN broadcasts. You can get a full season from there. Often, you can find the same for local colleges and minor league teams.
Web sites for ESPN, MLBN, NHLN, NBATV, etc., usually have scheds for at least two weeks. Most are a month or longer.
the506.com gets you your local NFL broadcasts (not official, but always right). That is updated a week out.
We do a month at a time, and it takes just a couple of hours. And it is very necessary, at least according to all of the calls we got about the Senior Bowl, which AP did not include because it was on NFLN.

 

When a paper gets rid of the TV listings or weekly guide, there is hell to pay for several weeks. I feel sorry for the front desk people around the country who take those calls.

 

When we moved the sports on TV listings from page 2 to page 5, we had a bunch of calls complaining we had dropped the lists.

 

I've seen your sections, buddy. I'll try things a different way, thanks.

 

For our first year, we didn't have a TV listings. The most common call we got was asking when we would be printing a TV section. More calls about that than news tips, praises, calls of complaints, etc. Almost all from senior citizens.
So my boss finally got listings. About a week later, an older gentleman comes into the office.

Gentleman: So how often does the paper come out?
Secretary: Once a week.
Gentleman: Do you have a TV listings in it?
Secretary: Yes, we do.
Gentleman (pulling out checkbook): OK, so how much was that again?

 

Yes. We probably get more calls about what sporting events are on TV and what channel ESPNU or whatever is on than anything else combined.

 

We dropped full-fledged TV listings and lost maybe 10 subscribers. We heard more whining but didn't lose the numbers. We added a primetime TV listings that runs once a week and takes up less than half a page to replace it and haven't heard any whining since

 

We get more phone calls about when, for one reason or another, stuff is left out of the TV listings than anything else. Though we do get the occasional "what channel is Channel 6?" calls, too.