"Innovation is alive and well at TV Guide magazine," TV Guide Publishing Group president Scott Crystal told me last week over Lunch at Michael's™. The weekly publication has undergone what Scott refers
to as an "historic transformation. Nothing like this has ever been done in publishing before. It's similar in context to the overhaul of Target, the change in perception toward the country of Japan, and the repositioning of Old Spice."
Scott Crystal
In the past several months, TV Guide purposefully collapsed its circulation, or rate base as it's known to advertisers, from nine million to 3.2 million. Sponsored sales, the subscriptions purchased at steep discounts by hotel chains for guests, was reduced dramatically from 3.2 million to 22,000. Since October, TV Guide has captured 800,000 renewals
and 600,000 new subscribers without discounts. Newsstand sales of the newly redesigned format, which eliminates the magazine's classic detailed programming guide, have been strong."1.4 million subscribers is more than most weeklies," Scott says proudly, "and we only had 20 percent of the subscription cancellations we anticipated."
With television programming becoming available whenever and wherever viewers want, and TV viewing information available on multiple websites, the value of a weekly program listing became outdated. Plus, networks are constantly making last minute schedule changes,
creating confusion and a disconnect between viewers and the magazine. In a move considered highly risky by industry analysts, Crystal engineered a complete redesign and editorial restructuring, including moving away from the digest format to a traditional weekly magazine size.
"TV Guide has been clearly crafted with a new and unique editorial voice," said Scott as MTV Networks' John Sykes and Jeffrey Leeds, CourtTV's Henry Schleiff, Loew's Jonathan Tisch and NBC's Jonathan Wald lunched nearby. "It's been understandably difficult to
launch an entirely new magazine with new business models. We have a reduced circulation base, higher costs per thousand, and we're no longer a commoditized digest tonnage product. We are an enthusiast magazine for television and TV viewers have an insatiable appetite for more information about their favorite shows, story arcs on series, characters and behind-the-scenes information."
Scott believes the new TV Guide has "clearly turned heads of the skeptics who said it wouldn't work. When we published our first circulation statement in February advertisers could see we delivered on our promise. Plus our demographic profile today is more female,
younger and more affluent." He adds, "we play right into the TV zeitgeist. TV keeps getting better and TV Guide celebrates what's best on TV without salacious celebrity coverage." Scott acknowledges the failed Inside TV magazine "was inconsistent in its editorial because we tried to toggle between celebrity and television and there was a glut of celebrity magazines."
With constant publicity about the growing impact of the Internet, Scott points out "every study for the past five years shows people are watching more television. They are time and place shifting to
enable them to watch more. The world of TV is more exciting and dynamic today than ever. Consumers are more excited about TV than they have been in a long time. Internet consumers are looking to a trusted editorial voice and filter to figure out what's worthwhile to watch and learn where they can find it."
Commenting on the success of YouTube and user-generated videos, Scott adds, "viewers need the expert
opinion. It's fun to see that someone fall out of a tree once, but people want to watch the top videos. They still need a filter to find what's worthwhile."
With last week's 700,000 newsstand copies, TV Guide included a DVD attached to the cover, featuring 82 minutes of content, much of which is also available at TVGuide.com (see Monday's JM-MBR) and was also featured on the TV Guide Channel. "Putting a DVD on the cover for newsstand sales sent a signal
to readers and advertisers that innovation is alive and well at TV Guide magazine. We created the DVD, acquired the program clips, conducted interviews, and to the best of my knowledge we're the first consumer publication to put a full DVD on the cover."
As Scott and I passed on the offered cookies at Michael's, he reinforced his message that "the TV Guide brand
has been contemporized, has become more appealing for consumers, is a trusted resource and companion, and has compelling opportunities for advertisers." Obviously, MediaVillage editors agree.
