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| TV Guide Channel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Launched | 1985 |
| Owned by | Joint venture between News Corporation & TV Guide |
| Slogan | America\'s Television Headquarters |
| Headquarters |  Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Formerly called | Electronic Program Guide (1985-1987) Prevue Guide (1988-1993) Prevue Channel (1993-1999) TV Guide Channel (1999-2007) TV Guide Network (2007-present) |
| Website | Network Website TV Guide Video Portal |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV | Channel 237 |
| Dish Network | Channel 117 |
| Cable | |
| Available on most cable systems such as Comcast, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, etc. | Channel number varies between cable system, check local listings. |
TV Guide Network (formerly known as TV Guide Channel, Prevue Channel and Prevue Guide) is a cable network produced by Gemstar-TV Guide International in the United States. It provides, on the bottom half of the screen, a scrolling grid that lists television channels and the television programs and films currently showing on them. On the top half of the screen are featured programs usually featuring movie previews, celebrity news, and commercials. The majority of the network\'s audience comes from channel surfers looking to see what\'s on and upcoming on their cable and satellite system\'s channel lineup.
Although the listing scroll continues to be the major feature of the channel, TV Guide Network has repositioned itself as a destination channel for television news and information through their original series and specials, mainly because of on-screen electronic program guides provided by digital video recorders like TiVo, satellite services and cable boxes, and listings on the Internet, which offer the information in a speedier manner and with more detail than TVGN\'s grid listings. TV Guide offers its own EPG software on digital cable boxes, called TV Guide Interactive, which is similarly structured like TV Guide Network listings-wise.
Contents |
In 1985, a small independent 24-hour cable network called the Electronic program guide (or the EPG for short) was launched. The early years of the EPG had an on-screen program guide that covered the entire screen. The graphics from the old EPG version featured the same channel listing every half hour: at times, current listings were several minutes away. The 1985 to 1987 version featured a local text-based advertisement ticker on the bottom of the screen and live audio from a local FM radio station.
Then in 1988, the company known as Prevue Networks Inc. was established and the EPG was renamed Prevue Guide. The second version of the Prevue Guide\'s program grid was similar to the EPG\'s version, and it featured the "split-screen". In this case, the "split-screen" featured graphic and animated advertisements on the upper portion of the screen. The bottom portion showed the then shrunken program grid. Although some cable companies decided to keep the old EPG version, major ones that had larger viewers decided to upgrade to the Prevue Guide version.
In 1991, the third version of the Prevue Guide was launched. Prevue Guide eventually decided to add their own programs and segments. For the cable companies that still carried the second version of the Prevue Guide program grid would only provide live audio from the Prevue Guide station and advertisements covered up the video portion of the screen. The third version saw the same scrolling channel listings taking up the bottom half of the screen of the new Prevue Guide format, while advertisements and identification could be displayed at the top half. Such a format continues to be used on the channel, albeit with many presentation changes. Meanwhile, Prevue Guide notified the smaller cable companies that still carried the old EPG version to upgrade and start carrying the Prevue Guide, and the EPG was later discontinued in 1993. Since then, many cable providers across the United States and Canada, offers local advertising on the top half of the screen and includes any type of music Prevue uses, from the Prevue Tonight segment to holiday music.
In early 1993, Prevue Guide overhauled its presentation and the listing format. A "blue grid" replaced the older format. Shortly thereafter the name became the Prevue Channel. By 1995, a new logo and new graphics to go with it had been added to the channel. That same year, Prevue introduced their first digital Interactive Guide, which was from General Instruments. It was launched as part of TCI\'s first digital cable service. The 1995 logo stood the same on February 9, 1998, but the font changed. By that point on, new programs were added and some were updated. The 1998 logo lasted until one year later, in 1999, when it was renamed TV Guide Channel.
PrimeStar, the first DBS satellite system, carried the Prevue Channel in 1994. Unlike the Cable version, this channel carried the actual "blue grid", which doesn\'t scroll from the top and the bottom of the screen. Also, PrimeStar carries only 8 channels, mostly for their programming lineup such as Movies, Sports, Family, Pay-Per-View and more. It lasted until late 1999, when Hughes Electronics, purchased PrimeStar and became DIRECTV.
The Prevue Guide grid itself is similar to The Weather Channel\'s WeatherSTAR (which would provide local information from the cable company and live video feeds at the same time) and it physically ran on Amiga hardware and software. The guide was known to crash at times, leaving the Amiga "Guru Meditation" error overlaid on top of the listings. Other common errors included a C-Band listing failover, and a red box where the listings would normally be, simply stating that local listings would appear soon.
In 1997, Prevue Networks Inc. and United Video Satellite Group launched Prevue Online, an online service for local TV listings, audio/video interviews, and weather forecast. Another website Prevuenet, was launched as well to provide more history and useful information for the Prevue Channel, Sneak Prevue, UVTV, WGN Chicago, and WPIX New York. Also, Prevue was the first channel that introduced TV Ratings on their blue grid as well as the top on the screen.
In February 1999, United Video Satellite Group, parent company of Prevue Networks, bought TV Guide for $2 billion in stock and cash. Over the next 10 months, the newly renamed TV Guide Channel quickly transitioned. New graphics were in by midyear and a replacement for the blue grid which had presented listings on the channel for 6 years was operational by December. Some cable companies were still using the old blue grids until they were finally phased out in January 2000.
Ever since TV Guide was bought by the Prevue Channel, the programs on it have changed drastically. \'Shows\' have been added to the TV Guide Network (see bottom). Shows can last from a few seconds to a couple hours (the longer shows take up the whole screen, making the scrolling grid smaller). Starting in 2005, Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa Rivers began providing coverage for television award events like The Emmy Awards and The Academy Awards. In 2007, the mother-daughter duo were unceremoniously dropped by TV Guide in favor of Lisa Rinna. Later in 2007, Rinna was joined by fellow Dancing with the Stars alumni Joey Fatone.
Also on the scrolling grid are ads and promotions for the local cable provider (their logo is shown at the end and beginning of the listings), which are usually preceded by local weather conditions. The weather data differs from that used on The Weather Channel\'s WeatherSTAR.
Because of Gemstar-TV Guide\'s dominant position in the listings market, on most websites the company provides listings for, TV Guide Network\'s listings appear on the topmost line, no matter which channel TVGN may be on. This is also the case within the print version of TV Guide.
Since the TV Guide Network isn\'t available with every cable service, services like IO Digital Cable and Bright House Networks have come up with their own scrolling grids, with IO having TV commercials for their service at a certain time (the other time just has still ads with music playing), but up in the right hand corner in a small screen and Bright House having a local news station as a "show", and the screen is set up like IO\'s.
DIRECTV did not start carrying the TV Guide Network until 2004. The network has been shown in full-screen since 2005.
This is also the case with DISH Network, as of 2006 the channel has gone full screen due to the fact that the on screen program guide is TV Guide branded.
During the network\'s red carpet coverage of awards shows and the network\'s primetime original series, the video from the event/show is shown full-screen, with a two line transparent non-scrolling grid along the bottom third of the screen showing a reduced version of the regular TV Guide Network listings, with truncated show titles only. An 800 number comment line also appears on the top line of these listings, which directs viewers to leave feedback about the listing style for TV Guide Network\'s future reference.
On April 30, 2007, Gemstar-TV Guide announced that as of June 4, 2007, the Channel would be re-branded as TV Guide Network, according to the press release, saying the move "reflects the continued evolution of the Channel from primarily a utility service, to a more fully developed television guidance and entertainment network with a continued commitment to high quality programming."
The type of show categories are highlighted by colors on the screen:
The use of these colors is unchanged on digital cable receivers with the newest version of TV Guide/Gemstar\'s EPG software, TV Guide Interactive.
During the time around the Emmys, shows that have been nominated are highlighted in gold. Same goes for the Oscars, except only movies that have won in the past. Other special shows, for example, like shows on Discovery Channel\'s Shark Week have a bubbly-water scheme, referring to the ocean, or close to Halloween, horror movies have spiderwebs in the scheme, and Holiday movies shown in December are blue with what looks like snow hanging at the top. Similar important shows and/or premieres have similar schemes to their grid space.
Note: on the older versions before the yellow grid came out in late 1999, the colors for the sports programs were not added at the time. Also, when the teal-green grid came out in early 2004, the color for the children\'s programs were added.
In addition to paid programming that airs from late morning-early afternoon, the TV Guide Network has many original series that air during primetime.
-Hosted by John Fugelsang and Teresa Strasser (Debra Wilson was a former co-host)
-Hosted by: Madison Michele and Chris Harrison
-Hosted by Lisa Joyner
-Hosted by Kimberly Caldwell and Rosanna Tavarez
-Hosted by Kimberly Caldwell, Rosanna Tavarez, Justin Guarini
-Hosted by: John Henson, and Nikki Boyer (Sometimes co-host switches)
-Hosted by Ken Taylor
-Hosted by Ken Taylor
-Hosted by Katie Wagner
-Hosted by Katie Wagner
-Hosted by Sibila Vargas & Aashna Patel & Cynthia Garrett
-Hosted by Debbie Matenopoulos & Ken Taylor
-Hosted by Debbie Matenopoulos
-Hosted by Katie Wagner & Ken Taylor
The Prevue Channel spun-off another network, exclusively for pay-per-view programming, Sneak Prevue in 1991. TV Guide ceased operations of Sneak Prevue in 2002.
Recorded 20 December 1991 |
TV Guide Channel logo from 1999 to 2001 |
TV Guide Channel logo from 2001 to 2004 |
TV Guide Channel logo from 2004 to 2005 |
TV Guide Channel logo from 2005 to June 2007 |
[1] Archive.org cache of a gallery of Prevue Guide crashes.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
