TV listings?

OUr recent reader survey:
1 -- NFL
2 -- TV listing

 

I do. I like having it all in one view, being able to look for the things/channels I want and having it all in my hands.

 

Wrong.

At my last paper, we ran the TV listings on the sports cover once a week. I'm not lying. If we didn't, people called and complained. When we did, people called and complained.

 

We're berated when TV doesn't get in. I guess I'm giving away our area's median age.

 

Dooley noted. I'm always quick to criticize the assholes running this business for alienating what is left of its core audience, but I couldn't blame someone if he used the TV listings space for something else.

 

I bet you could make a fortune going to people's houses and tuning their TVs to the channels they want to watch that noght.

 

I would say that three-quarters of our calls that aren't high school call-ins have to do with TV listings.

I use Zap2It when localizing our listings. I make any channel that carries live sports a favorite so that I don't have to go through all 500 channels. Then I check the RSNs, local syndication packages and the digital channels that don't make the AP listings. Zap2It lets you see one channel's programming for the entire day on one screeen, so that makes it really easy.

My biggest problem is the local syndication packages and regionalized network coverage. Our local affiliates are never consistent on these things (i.e. one conference's package might air on one channel one week, another channel the next and not at all the week following). Zap2it and the syndicator sites are often wrong, and I can never get a hold of someone at the respective stations who has a clue as to what's going on ... or if I do, it takes four or five transfers to get me to the right person.

 

I'm sure the damn kids are setting their DVRs while playing hacky-sack on my lawn, but you'd be amazed how many people still instinctively go to the newspaper for their TV listings. It's a learned response.

 

We had one guy call in one night asking if WE were putting the game on TV. Not Comcast. Us. The newspaper.

Well, it's your lucky day, sir. We have a special edition of the paper coming out just before kickoff. Turn to page C4 and hit the play button.

 

We rely on our own TV listings about as much as Ezekiel Oldfeller does for budget purposes.

 

Circus:

If you have access to AP Exchange, you can find it there under "Sportswatch." It typically sucks. There's a daily version and one for the entire week that moves sometime Friday afternoon.

 

The number one complaint we get is about the daily TV listings. I really love the one where people say "you said so-and-so wasn't going to be on but I found it on channel 28" or as already noted, "how come you didn't have so-and-so on last night" to which I have replied "I'm sorry but ESPN doesn't ask my opinion on which games they should do."