Over the weekend, The New York Times published the last daily TV listings in its print edition. According to an article announcing the end of print TV listings, for years only the local New York City edition of the paper has carried TV listings in print. Why the change? Because a printed TV grid no longer makes sense in the streaming era of television.
The content crush is a far cry from May 18, 1939, when television listings began appearing regularly in the paper. That day, at the bottom of the Today on the Radio column — The Times considered television a form of radio for quite a long time — a few lines briefly noted the frequencies and a mention that an 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. bloc would consist of “Films.”
The paper’s culture editor, Gilbert Cruz, fully expects to receive angry e-mails from readers angry about the loss of the print TV grid.
I’ve transcribed hundreds of daily and weekly TV listings from The New York Times. They’re an invaluable resource for cultural historians and early television enthusiasts like myself.
My God! This sudden rush to “modernize” things in America is too rampant. “Thanks a lot,” New York Times!
There are some (many?) people who prefer printed TV listings over looking online for a schedule. I’m an old fogey who, for years, subscribed to TCM’s printed Viewers Guide, and when the channel switched over to online listings it seemed like too much trouble to see what was playing, so I stopped watching Turner Classic Movies. I suspect a large percentage of people who still subscribe to The New York Times are older people who like things the way they “always” were, so I imagine the paper will get a lot of complaints about no more printed TV listings.
What a terrible horrible idea and a true inconvenience to your most loyal ( older )
readers. Do I really have to switch to The News ?
Nancy, You should have switched a long time ago, the NYT is a notoriously communist publication which has been self destructing for years. Fox News talks about this all the time. The Times doesn’t deserve “loyal” readers such as yourself.
CLIMB OFF IT!!!….. the new york times HAS BEEN SELF- DESTRUCTING FOR TWENTY YEARS ALREADY…….. they were never TV GUIDE which garnered such a repore in this country,,,,……..when you could plan ahead one WEEK { WITH ASTERISKS+=====)personal; scheduling the way it used to be……clearly it took times management more hours preparing a page with utter illegible presentation for years,, IT WAS A BAD GRAPHIC DESIGN FROM ITS GET GO….* hey.. Im old enough to remember the weekend fold- out tv listings when our local paper superceded PARADE’s weekend mentality,,,, THAT IS’;; OUR AUDIENCE REVOLVES AROUND A 78 I>Q>…….. serves /em right!!!!!