TV Guide and Fandom

Fandom:	Pan-fandom
Dates:	early 20th century-present
See also:	TV Guide at Wikipedia
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TV Guide is an American for-profit magazine.

It includes television program listings information, summaries and titles television-related news, celebrity interviews and gossip, polls, film reviews, crossword puzzles, photos, and sometimes horoscopes.

Its purpose is to sell ads, both in the magazine itself and from products fans see advertised on the screen. By encouraging fans to watch more television, it also allows producers to leverage their own advertising goals.

the first issue of TV Guide (April 3, 1953)

Communal Viewing

a 1974 ad for the Gene Roddenberry project, Planet Earth from TV Guide: "A world where males are kept as breeders and slaves... by a legion of Amazon women more ruthless than any man."

Before fans had access to VCRs, cable, the internet, and a plethora of pay-per-view options, television shows had a culture of communal viewing. Fans in the same region (and often nationwide) sat down to watch a handful of television channels at the same time.

Not only did TV Guide inform them of television schedules and show summaries, but it also provided a common platform for a shared worldview.

As options increased, both for viewing and for information, the TV Guide has become much less of a communal touchstone.

Some High-Profile Articles in TV Guide

• Grokking Mr. Spock by William Marsano (Four pages of convention coverage describing Star Trek fandom as it was at that time, with many photos. Many fans cite this as their introduction to Star Trek.) (March 25, 1972)
• Mr. Spock is Dreamy by Issac Asimov
• a TV Guide interview with David Soul (contains a much-cited comment by Soul: "'Starsky & Hutch' is listed as a 'crime drama'," says David, "but in my opinion the show is a love story between two men.") (August 13, 1977)
• several Beauty and the Beast articles that upset the fans (1989-1990), one fan, Dot Sconzo, said they were ones "which seemed to go out of its way to humiliate B&B fans"

TV Guide: Bringer of Pain and Delight

For many decades, the TV Guide was a vast source of canon information, and for many, operated much like the internet does today.

For some fans, TV Guide was a primary source of where they first heard about television shows.

While it did not contain fanworks itself, it was a communal source of information that promoted fandom in many other ways. While it didn't offer fans contacts for other fans or fanworks, TV Guide also contained some reports on fan activities, such as articles about conventions.

It provided photos which fans devoured both for personal enjoyment, but also for photo references for fanart. " One early article was about telepics, which included instructions for fans how to take photos of scenes on the screen for their personal use, a practice that coming from TPTB seemingly walks a fine line on copyright!

It included many interviews and articles which voracious fans. Some them popularized fannish vocabulary, ignited and dashed fan theories , fanned ship wars, broke bad news, gave fans insight into actors and characters, bolstered enthusiasm, and were sometimes heartbreaking and enraging.

Even the covers were a source of discussion:

I may have bought my last TV Guide after...20 years? Oh, I will check it out at the checkout stand and Xerox what I need at the library. I resented their never having a B&B cover.

Ship Wars

From a Miami Vice fan:

I just read an item in TV Guide recently that mentioned that CASTILLO and Trudy may become an involved! Now, that's interesting! This would have have to be a fairly new development, since I don't recall seeing any kind of a 'spark' between them before. Unless I wasn't watching closely enough..."

From an Oz fan:

TV Guide calls Beecher and Keller the Luke and Laura of the new millennium and we can but agree.

An Early Platform for Fannish Phrases and Opinions

In April 1967, science fiction author (and fan) Isaac Asimov wrote a tongue-in-cheek article called "Mr. Spock is Dreamy!" for TV Guide, in which he described and tried to explain the female reaction to Spock:

Captain Kirk (for those, if any, who are not STAR TREK fans) is a capable hero and a full-blooded human. Mr. Spock is half-alien and is a creature of pure reason and no emotion.

[...]

And my daughter said, "I think Mr. Spock is dreamy!"

In, BNF Bjo Trimble wrote about her unhappiness about what she considered sloppy reporting by TV Guide in which they claimed that some Trek fans threatened to bomb NBC:

I wrote to the magazine, asking for proof of that statement, but have not heard from them. If I had a subscription to TV GUIDE, I'd cancel it, even if it meant buying off the stands for a month or so, just to show them how I feel about allegations like that. I feel strongly that TV GUIDE should either prove that statement or retract it, and all the extra ST fan mail they publish won't serve as a "sop" to me.

The [use of the phrase] "cult" following, which I am beginning to suspect is synonymous with "women" (TV Guide referred to "cult" also, in reference to people who enjoyed watching "Cagney & Lacey" on TV).

TV Guide ran an article in their November 16-22nd issue about what they theorized might be a Disney cartoon "Sexy Enough for Adults, Magical for Kids." freelancer Rick Marin threw in a mention for the tv series:

"A fanatical cultdom sprang up around CBS's Beauty and the Beast TV show. Fan clubs of (mostly single) women in their 30's calling themselves Beasties' swooned over the show's dreamy leonine hero. 'They're just starved for anything that has to do with tho show (canceled in 1990 after three seasons) or the story itself,' says Beastie Barbara Coleman."

(I know this editor helped coin this, but can't anyone come up with a better cognomen? ...And I don't mean "Beauties" either.)

Target of Letter Campaigns

In early 1968, in an open letter to TV Guide, NBC Vice President Mort Werner commented on letter campaign, and said the number of letters and telegrams sent by fans to bring back Star Trek was about 100,000. Werner sent along some of the letters, which were reprinted in TV Guide. One example of those printed letters:

As an ardent member of the Star Trek Underground Watcher's Society, I agree with the New Orleans lady in principle. But, Mrs. Tortorich, it is the kiss of death to tell anyone that a program is intellectually stimulating! If this is made known, the network will fire the producer, and the sponsors will fade like a cheap pair of pants. No! There is a better way, fellow Trekkies. We must tell the network that Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley are dolls, real DOLLS! Tell the sponsors the show is the newest kind of CAMP! Then tell the public that if they listen close the dialog is really DIRTY! This should please everybody, and those of us who are hooked on the show could enjoy it another year. Besides, Mr. Spock really is Something Else. - Jane Ayers, Evansville, Indiana.

Hailing frequencies open — Well, fen, the effects of the "Save Star Trek" campaign are beginning to be felt. Letters have been pouring in to NBC, to TV Guide, and other magazines and newspapers. There was an orderly and well-publicized march on NBC in Burbank, and another on NBC in New York. At last, somebody besides Nielsen is making some noise — we are making ourselves heard.

Write to Paramount, TV Guide, NBC and other networks, local stations, and the Federal Communications Commission.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the recent Bernay's/MV letter campaign to Roger Simon, TV Guide, and NBC, and the Vice producers. I think we really made an impression! TV Guide says the Simon article was one of their most controversial this year — it certainly spawned a lot of pro and con comments.

Telepics

In 1994, a fan mentioned an "old article" entitled, "How to shoot J.R. -- and others." The topic was how to take telepics off of the televisions screen:

TV Guide suggests you open up the f-stop to around f/2.8--f/4 and set the shutter speed at either 1/8 or 1/15 sec. They also suggest setting the video recorder to freeze-frame mode (though personally I don't like to do this...the pictures don't seem as crisp to me)."

Source for Personal Scrapbooks

from a fan's early Star Trek scrapbook: at the top is a review of the show published in the March 1967 issue of TV Guide. Another newspaper article talks about how Star Trek avoided cancellation.

A source for an extensive scrapbook, but also a topic of low-brow reading:

I have a 100 page scrapbook of clippings...I had to put them somewhere. They kept falling out of the folder I had them in. I watched for the first time Vincent smiles, drank, laughed, cried. I even spotted the "blooper" of Vincent's hand minus his 'fur' in one episode. I paid $10 for a book on poetry because I was looking for a poem from the show. My friends wouldn't believe that. They think all I read is the TV Guide and the STAR! I scour every magazine for articles or news on the show.

Source for Zines

Copyright be damned!

Many zine eds included information and episode summaries, as well as retyped or photocopied clippings of articles in their own publications.

Some examples: [Star Trek (Star Trek: TOS zine)|Star Trek]], En Garde, The Schooner Bay Beacon, Z: The Zorro Letterzine, Leapin' Jeeps, The DeForest Kelley Compendium, and Incident UXP are just a few.

At least one fan took issue with editors utilizing TV Guide (and other publication) in their zines. From a vitrolic review of one zine:

...the one place where NCC's otherwise clean repro breaks down is the reprinting of articles stolen from People, TV Guide, and other professional sources, which are still coming out with the text gray and the photos nearly black. Ethical questions aside... nobody but the fan who lives in a caribou-hide tent on the lower slopes of Everest and pays for their subscription in skin bags of goat's milk hasn't seen these already.

A Gateway to Fandom

That first episode was "The Apple", and I hadn't the faintest idea what was going on. Transporters, pointed ears, all that foliage, all those painted people, force-fields, phasers .... I was lost by the first beam-down effect, but I was entranced. I clipped everything, including the blurbs in TV Guide. I was learning to touch-type, and I began pounding out episode synopses on my ancient black manual.

It was one historical evening in August 1994 and I'm sure my poor husband still curses that day when he looked into the TV guide and told me that there was a Superman-movie...

At first I was not even aware of the new CBS fantasy called “Beauty & the Beast" when it made its debut back in 1987, but as I drove my [4] kids to and from school and around town each day, I began to hear comments about the show from people on the radio. The more I heard, the more interested I became.

The typical line was- “My wife won’t miss that show!" or "What is up with women and that show?”-or "I can’t pull my wife away from the television Friday nights!” After hearing these sorts of comments on radio shows as well as seemingly everywhere I turned, I decided I had to look in the TV Guide and figure out just when it was on- how could there be so much hype about this show? The buzz about it was enormous.

My first glimpse into the mysterious world of X-Files Internet Fandom occurred in 1994 or 95 when I was 12 or 13; I was reading an article in TV Guide about this phenomenon, in which I encountered, for the first time, the word "x-phile." I can't remember if anything was said about fanfic (did they have XF fic back then?). What I do vaguely recall is that I got the impression that These People were unfathomably weird, and yet... I was intrigued. It definitely left an impression on me.

BBC's Sherlock. I didn't even have a tumblr account at that point...I have ontd_spnparty to thank for sparking my curiosity in Sherlock. In several of their commenting parties (or perhaps it was a post during the Great TV Guide Voting of 2010) someone kept posting these ridiculously adorable fanarts of John and Sherlock. I didn't know it was Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch at that point. I just saw a drawing of a ridiculously cute John Watson and Sherlock Holmes and I thought "If that show is inspiring such adorable drawings, it must be worth checking out..."

...in 1964, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. appeared. It wasn't children's programming ---- these were grown up men --- but young people all over the US and eventually in other countries as well, most notably the UK and Japan, embraced it. It wasn't originally meant for us, but it was *ours* in a way programs had never been previously. TV Guide noted that there had been "nothing" like MFU before: the magazine called it "the mystic cult of millions." When MFU was on, the tv audience ---made up mostly of young folks from 12 through college age --- was comparable to the Super Bowl today.

As I already was a fan of science fiction, I was into Star Trek from the day the show premiered in 1966. I did not hook up with organized fandom until almost 49 years ago, after seeing fanzines mentioned in some Trek books (and cons written about in TV Guide).

A Face of Fandom

[I attended] the first New York Star Trek convention where my costume ended up in TV Guide. (I was the vampire cloud and won most beautiful, in case you're curious.)

A big con is fun once. You can see the stars, watch some of the episodes on a big screen, buy lots of fanzines and slides and other stuff and go home happy. But this isn't something to do very often. It would be a lot more rewarding, I suspect, to get together with a couple of hundred other fans at a small regional convention and actually be able to talk about things. But TV Guide is never going to cover a bunch of people having discussions.

Visibility and Fandom

In the program book for the 1995 Shore Leave, a fan welcomed a spotlight on this convention:

TV Guide, in their special Trek issue, stated that Shore Leave and other fan cons "make up in grass-roots vitality what they may lack in polish, and allow the fan community to really come alive.

But not all fans liked having fan comments and other things in TV Guide. In 1995, a discussion on Lysator, an early Blake's 7 mailing list, a fan cited fears about visibility in the magazine, as well as the newly forming internet:

This is a public list unfortunately and we cannot all assume friendship with one another, based solely upon a decision to join this list. As the crowd grows, so does the possibilities for abuses. A teenaged boy here in my town was "picked" up by a man over the Internet, a San Jose police officer regularly "patrols" certain newsgroups watching for this type of behavior, news magazines and tv guide quote fannish discussions from Trek to the Simpson case...

I also prefer keeping K/S quieter. Shit, I remember being bothered that K/S was mentioned in a TV Guide special magazine a few years ago, for just anybody in the supermarket line to read about. Now I don't mind the general public knowing about K/S (except with the net, the general public's knowledge-gathering ability is raised to a fine art), but I don't want distracters and those inclined to cause trouble to know where to find it. As far as that goes, and although this really isn't the issue, I feel like, who needs the general public, the philistines, to even know about K/S. I don't need or want any respectability lent to these activities. I don't mind being underground about it at all; I prefer it.

Not My Spokesperson!

Beauty and the Beast (TV) fans were upset about a Fall 1989 TV Guide article that said that one of the main characters was going to die in a future episode:

I just read a horrible article in the TV GUIDE saying Catherine is going to get killed off! ...What would "Beauty and the Beast" be like without a Beauty? It would be horrible! Oh, please say she isn't leaving! Please!

After seeing that thing in this week's TV Guide I need a more human —and humane— source of information.

Is this a hoax that is being perpetrated by the tabloid that TV Guide has become? Is it a planted story by CBS so they can cancel the show without us caring? Who are these nameless people they mention as a 'Focus Group'? I really pushed the panic button on this one.

"TV Guide-Style" Summaries

Fans utilize the term "TV Guide-style" in zines and on websites to describe summaries for fanfic and virtual season episodes.

comments by Kendra Hunter in her 1981 zine, Credit List, who used actual TV Guide summaries: "We hope you find the TV Guide descriptions useful in finding shows which feature David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser. We have included titles where we could. Our main source of information for this list was TV Guide. Other sources are listed where applicable."

It likely means pithy, without spoilers, short, and written in a way to entice readers and viewers.

From a fan in 2000:

The next issue in summary writing, beyond the label itself, is: How much do you say? This is a fine line. Most instructors recommend you study the capsule descriptions in the TV Guide to figure out what a summary should be like.

When used as a parody, it also probably includes incorrect information, breathless ignorance, and somewhat useless.

In 1998, a fan commented about TV Guide summaries and their simplicity:

[Writing] a summary would be even harder. I find them almost impossible unless I have a real plot other than the relationship (current story - the long one I'm still writing - has a real X-files plot, so I can at least give a TV Guide blurb.)

A fan in 2000 complained about vapid TV Guide summaries:

...I do think the time has come for The X-Files to end. It'll be too bad if that happens, though, since Fox will have wasted its prime final-episode-milking time squabbling with lawyers. A last episode, a "Next time, Mulder and Scully encounter some scary snakes in the South!", and the following month a TV Guide footnote saying, "Well, it turns out that was the final season of The X-Files" is not the send-off our favorite show deserves.

Fan Comments

I know many of you were upset by the Sept. 23rd TV GUIDE article . Please keep in mind that the same man who owns TV GUIDE also owns one of the tabloids. The article is couched in tabloid terms and contains neither the sub-plots nor the reasons for the things that happened.

when I got home from work, I picked up the new TV GUIDE and promptly looked through it hoping to find some B&B news. Sure enough, there in the Insider section was a small article. I was furious after I read Everyone has a right to their opinion, but that kind of "personal attack" doesn't belong in the TV GUIDE. Did someone hold a gun to Mr. Eisenberg's head and force him to watch "The Terminator"? Doesn't he know Lawrence Eisenberg's nasty comment about Linda. Who the hell does he think he is? how to turn his damn TV set off? I can't understand why the TV GUIDE lets him get away with that.

[...]

I strongly encourage everyone to write to TV GUIDE, not only the Letters Department, but also the management and complain about personal insults of this nature. I'd rather see them ignore B&B than constantly put it and Linda and Ron down!

"There was a little more flirting, I will give it that," Skogland confirmed to TV Guide. "I loved the dynamic between Adepero and Sebastian, or Bucky and Sarah. I love that dynamic and it was really fun because, of course, you can imagine Sam was just not up for that... We did have a bit more from that scene we decided not to put in, but it was very enjoyable."

Fanworks

Parody Schedules and Summaries

• "Collinsport TV Guide" by Joe Flanigan The Eagle Hill Sentinel #1 Dark Shadows (1985)
• "TV Guide Listings We'd *All* Like To See" (at Helmboy's Voyager Stories website)
• "TV Guide Galactic Programs Fall Preview Issue" by Stephen Mendenhall (Saurian Brandy Digest #32) (1984)
• The Cannell Files #18 (the 1989 April Fool's Day issue) included a fake TV Guide ad that was dummied up and accompanied the fake episode guide. Not enough explanation was given to readers to warn them about the fake arc, and some Cannell Files readers were fooled into thinking it was legitimate, leading them to contact their local CBS affiliates to ask why those episodes had been locally pre-empted!
• Feuersturm, a 1993 Star Trek zine in German, includes a TV guide from the future

• "TV Guide," a story by by Siubhan ("A sick little fantasy about what might have happened if I had won the TV Guide Voyager contest back in the summer of 1995.") (posted to Siubhan's House of Horrors)

• 

  speculation about the future, from the zine, Federation Graffiti (1976)

• 

  some Star Trek: TOS speculation about the future, from the zine, Federation Graffiti (1976)

• 

  artist is Z.P. Florian, from HoloGuide (1996)

Incorporated Into Other Fanworks and Activities

• 

  The artist is Gordon Carleton who portrays Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, and a proto-baby Yoda on the cover of Syndizine #2. This illo utilizes the familiar TV Guide logo. (1981)

• 

  Special Slash Edition of the TV Guide, a fan's door decoration at the 2006 MediaWest*Con