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.

Me and Dick Cavett

I was surprised to accidentally discover tonight that Dick Cavett regularly blogs for the New York Times.
Now Dick Cavett and I go way back.
Not that we ever met or encountered each other, you understand. (Yeah, I know. You saw the title and thought, "Here's some neat little gossip." Well, sorry to disappoint you.)
I was a regular viewer of Cavett's late-night show on ABC. So I guess you could say we did meet, in a way. Late-night host Cavett was witty, charming and hip, all in one neat little box.
The great thing about "The Dick Cavett Show" was the guests. In a day when Johnny Carson was still the King of Late Night," Cavett had some incredibile guests.
On one show, he had John Lennon and Yoko Ono by themselves. On another, he hosted a bunch of rock musicians who'd just come from the Woodstock Music Festival. On another, he interviewed Bette Davis in an empty studio.
It was this repartee and knack for intimacy with his guests that made him beat Carson in substance where he couldn't beat him in ratings.
(Many of the great moments of "The Dick Cavett Show" have been released on a series of wondeful DVDs from Shout Factory. We recommend them highly.)
Cavett's writing today is much like his show was then. He's still low-key and very modest, though he loves to make remarks at his expense.
In his current column, he wanders into the subject of coming back to TV.

"A goodly number of you out there have written varied versions of “Why don’t you come back on TV?” I’m not sure. It does help if you’re asked."

It does, Dick. Hell, if we had the power and the resources, we'd ask. We hope there's someone smart enough who will.
So thanks for your great show.
And we highly recommend his column. We're glad the New York Times was smart enough to give him the blog.
Maybe some bright network guy will look away from the reality show blitz that is flooding TV these days and give Dick another shot.
He deserves it. As do we.