Word: tv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that TV Guide is in any danger of losing its standing as the nation's premier TV magazine. (Its last serious competitor, Time Inc.'s TV-CABLE WEEK, expired after six months of publication in 1983.) Officials contend that the circulation drop can be explained by an increase in cover price (from 60 cents to 75 cents) and a pruning of some expensive-to-acquire subscribers. Advertising revenue, they add, was affected by last year's TV writers' strike (which delayed the networks' fall promotions) and by the elimination of a long-standing practice in which TV Guide traded...
...want to rectify any illusion that TV Guide is broke and needs to be fixed," says Joseph Cece, installed by Murdoch as TV Guide president. "This is one of the most enormously successful magazines in the history of publishing. What we're doing is looking to take it to a new level." The goal is to boost circulation to 18 million, he says, mostly by increasing newsstand sales. The next gimmick: a 16-page insert of discount coupons, to run at least once a month beginning in June...
...tarting up of TV Guide has dismayed many staffers. "The Murdoch people do not understand the American magazine reader," says outgoing managing editor R.C. Smith. "TV Guide has belonged to a small group of magazines, like National Geographic and Reader's Digest, in that it has always managed to be respectable so that people want to have it in their homes. ((The new bosses)) have a virgin-and-whore feeling about journalism -- you're either the Times of London or the Sun. The idea that there's a balancing act in between, I think, is alien to them." So, apparently...
Some of the darker warnings about Murdoch's takeover have not been borne out. TV Guide is not giving special editorial treatment to the Fox network, which is part of Murdoch's media empire. The listings section is still unmatched for comprehensiveness and accuracy, and the magazine's personality pieces retain a healthy edge of skepticism. Moreover, some staffers believe the old TV Guide, with its rather stodgy format, may have been due for rejuvenation. Yet that sober, even-tempered tone of voice always provided an important bit of ballast for a business fraught with glitter and hype. The danger...
...TV viewers back in the U.S.S.R. saw footage of the protesters only on the day their leader left China, and even then the events were presented as two completely different stories. During Gorbachev's stay, Soviet television had blacked out the demonstrations. However, within minutes after Gorbachev boarded the plane in Shanghai and headed home, TASS carried its first detailed story on the crisis. What the Soviet press has yet to report, of course, is what Gorbachev, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and the other members of the Soviet diplomatic team really thought about their extraordinary visit. Quipped a Soviet journalist...