Goodbye, TV Guide??

At one time, TV Guide was a magazine you bought almost without thinking every week at the supermarket. You had to have it. It had all the TV listings -- with detail -- for the stations in your area. That was a lot more than the one that came in your newspaper.
It had stories. It had lots of pages and only cost a little. IT HAD A CROSSWORD!!
But like the bad times affecting newspapers, TV Guide is being affected, too. Nikki Fink's Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting the publication is in the middle of downsizing and could be shuttered as soon as this week.
As the former editor of a Sunday TV magazine myself, I know how much we looked up at TV Guide. It was thick. It listed everything!, which is what readers wanted. It was cheap (though our Sunday magazine was cheaper since it was included in the paper).
And ... it had a crossword puzzle!!!!
But then, all this is no surprise. When TV Guide switched from being primarily a listings magazine to a gossip magazine, readers groaned. And complained. And stopped taking the magazine. It wasn't what they wanted.
But it was what the owners wanted -- something cheap and glossy for a public they really didn't want to provide a service for. It was all about making money.
Now it's all hitting home.
If this is indeed the end, goodbye, TV Guide. We'll miss the listings. We'll miss those grids. We'll miss those Close-ups.
And most of all, we'll miss that crossword.