A few years ago, online TV guides were just a paperless version of what was arriving in the mail or the middle of Sunday papers. Today, however, as we get closer to the world of TV over IP and video on demand in every home, the space is evolving, giving customers more than they can get in paper.
At the same time, advertisers are realizing that TV guides with demographically targeted content present a promising vehicle for delivering targeted ads. Market penetration for these sites is still relatively modest, but it is growing and, as the prospect of not just finding television programming, but also watching it online, becomes more likely, usage will grow exponentially.
Just as very few people bother to check the newspaper for movie times at their local theatre, preferring to go online instead, fewer and fewer people rely on the old print version of television listing times. There are just too many benefits to going online. We explain why below.
As of today, all sites with guides are free and it appears they will remain so, hoping their targeted content will attract more users and thereby enough advertisers or affiliate sales (think iTunes-like content downloads) to build sustainable businesses.
The best features on these sites are those that are moving beyond listings and doing a good job of matching viewer’s interests and habits with programming content. If it sounds akin to online dating sites, well… it is. Your potential matches, in this case, are TV programs.
The big win, however, is to link these listings directly to TV over IP content, something that will require industry-level psychological and legal evolution.
The companies listed here are the major providers of TV programming schedules online across local, cable, and satellite. MeeVee, Zap2It, and TitanTV also syndicate, making guides available across a number of sites. Individual cable or satellite providers and sites that provide listings in conjunction with hardware/software solutions, like SnapStream, will not be reviewed in this post.
TV Guide
The granddaddy of television programming guides launched on the web all the way back in 1997. Today, TVGuide provides a wealth of original content, some unique to the site, some from print. In addition to editorial content, it hosts a series of blogs from fans. The strategy seems to be aimed at helping you select what to watch through the recommendations of individuals. Listings are available and while offering some category filtering (sports, etc.), the listing engine itself is pretty basic. Perhaps it’s a bias on my part, but I can’t help thinking that the print TVGuide is, at this point, a bit of an albatross around the site’s neck. I understand leveraging the brand, but it can feel like the goal of the site is to sell print subscriptions, not help online users find the right stuff to watch.
Meevee
MeeVee launched its guide last year. While pursuing a similar strategy to TV guide (helping viewers find TV shows), Like TVGuide, MeeVee lets you search for shows based on actors, subjects (like sharks), keywords, etc. and adds the results to your guide. And it goes further than any of the others – Meevee will then surface shows based on those criteria in the future. Additionally, MeeVee recognizes internet channels in a way its competitors don’t. It might not seem like much now, but the definition of programming (think user-generated video) is starting to extend far beyond cable television channels. If MeeVee can uncover internet-based programming based on user interests, something TVGuide may not be able to do for psychological reasons, it can move ahead of the pack. MeeVee also has direct video content, but its current library is slim. MeeVee needs to expand this content offering and integrate with its strong guide to more broadly deliver on its strategy.
Zap2it
Zap2it is owned by the Tribune company. Its site combines listings as well as TV content. It also has content related to Movies and DVDs on its site, as well as movie listings – all of which again suggests a similar strategic theme: “here’s what to watch”. As part of Tribune, there’s some good professional content on this site. It also has some community features which draw some decent traffic. The listings section still feels like paper translated to the web, however. The categorization of programming through color coding is a nice feature, but not groundbreaking. It’s a complete offering, but no single component of the offering blows you away.
Yahoo TV
Yahoo TV is a good combination of content and listings. If you consider Yahoo has a lot of experience in combining content and data (think Yahoo Finance), this isn’t surprising. The listings take advantage of Yahoo’s search technology and enable keyword search to find shows based on interests, actors, etc., but the listings fall short of MeeVee’s in that Yahoo can not be set up to continually surface programming based on these criteria. The content is a mix of proprietary and syndicated. Its new online show “The 9” seeks out the best in web video for the day and works as original web content. In addition, with the ability to program your Tivo through its listings, Yahoo has a solid overall offering.
TV.com
TV.com , a CNET property, stands out for its excellent community content. Reviews, ratings and forums are available to TV.com members. The emphasis on community indicates a bit of a different strategy, making TV.com seem less about what to watch and more about connecting you with those who watch what you watch. The site is usually buzzing after the screening of a popular TV show. If you want listings, you’ll find them here too, but it’s not their strength, community is.
TitanTV
TitanTV is owned by Decision Mark, who provides data and software to the broadcast industry. TitanTV is only a guide right now. The guide doesn’t look very good, but it is pretty useful, with lots of color coding to help users distinguish program characteristics. Their search engine falls short of MeeVee and Yahoo, but does allow for more detailed searches of listings than some of its competitors. As a guide, it’s not bad, but there are better and you won’t find much else here right now.
Summary
We’ve included a summary chart of features below, but the strengths can be summarized as follows: If you want to watch TV content, most of the sites provide clips of shows, previews, etc. If your interest is in editorial content, while quality content is found on most sites, the traditional media outlets have the greatest volume. If you are looking for a strong guide that will help you discover more programming based on your interests, MeeVee is your best bet. If it’s community features you’re after then you’ll be drawn to TV.com. If you want good integration of editorial content and listings, no one totally hits out of the park, but Yahoo TV provides a nice user interface that balances listings and content.
All in all, these sites, while certainly better than paper for finding shows and planning your TV viewing, aren’t fully delivering on the real promise of online TV. In this new channel, I want a complete experience, some form of consummation. Until these sites take it a step further and make it easier to experience the video content right after you find it, they are leaving you hanging. Only Yahoo provides some form of consummation with the ability to program your Tivo from its site. MeeVee is taking steps by linking to some internet channels, but more direct connection to on demand, online broadcast (mlb.tv, mobiTv), or even user generated is a necessary next step to really deliver on what could be a really useful service.
A comparison of services can be found below:
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The paper TV guide is only one of the many products and segments we will see revolutionized when television migrates completely to IP protocol. Consider traditional advertising agencies, national broadcasters, film makers, companies that advertise with the traditional 30-seconds spots, all those players will need to revise their tactics and their strategy alike.
Hi Michael,
thanks for this overview. Next of a nice reading on Sunday afternoon it saved me a lots of research and a good overview of the US market. Its to bad nothing substantial is happening ‘yet’ in Europe
have a nice weekend,
EvokeTV is an attempt to blend TV listings with social networking…
If only MeeVee did iCal so that it could integrate with Google Calendar and the like. Evoke is very unreliable for this use.
I don’t think anyone with digital cable/satellite uses any other kind of TV guide… online or in print. The guide included with Time Warner’s digital box is enough for me.
Good overview. The difference in semantics between a “TV guide” and “video search” is huge, but it seems to me the reality of it is that they’re very similar. I mean, YouTube’s logo even riffs off the TV Guide Logo (although if TV Guide sued, they would just look like bitter has-beens).
I think we can look forward to a blending of professional and so-called “user-generated” content as the online and offline TV further merge. The next generation of ultra-cheap reality shows is already in production at this very moment. Go to YouTube and check out Warehouse America.
Where is EvokeTV?
http://evoketv.com is the url. I like it, as it is clean and simple.
nice overview–enjoying this series.
What a load of myopic crap. Get out of your early-adopter mindset and look around to see what real people actually do. In the vast majority of homes, there has been no convergence of television and the computer. There are still two screens, frequently in two separate rooms. The paper TV Sunday supplement sits on the end table under the remote, and the articles filling in around the ad space go unread because no one actually cares what’s in them.
The video sharing sites are nothing but the latest channel for sending around the joke-of-the-moment. Statistically insignificant people have heard of podcasts or videoblogging.
No one searches for TV like they search Google. They channel surf, maybe catch a show they like. If they have a Tivo, they might set it to record all the episodes, which then pile up and go unwatched. Only vapid teenagers, lonely cat-ladies and basement-dwelling loners blog about TV shows or celebrities.
Where’s the problem that any of these “services” solve? Find me the people who don’t “get enough” out of television to the point where they need any of this stuff.
FYI, you have a comma in the URL for Zap2it
There is also a new cool TV gadget on LabPixies site.
Try: http://www.labp..._page.asp?ID=25
In the meantime, paper TV guides have disappeared out of newspapers in a lot of small towns in my area. Or at least thinned out to being just a grid; no explanation of who is in a movie or a summary of the plot.
The problem? A completely lost market as a result. Many TV-loving seniors I’ve spoken to are lamenting what’s happened. These seniors say they can’t afford a computer, let alone know how to use one.
Now, they don’t even bother buying the Friday or Saturday edition of the newspaper because the new “grid” tv guides are useless to them. They’re turning back to TV.
Is it just me or does anyone else think an entire market is being ignored in the transition?
It’s worth mentioning that of these sites, only TVGuide and Zap2It support the canadian market. In fact TVGuide appears to have listings for a wide selection of channels in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, which I think makes it fairly unique amongst those surveyed.
It could be cool if there was one aggregated service that could offer the listings for any network in any country and then filter it based on where the users are located. Could definitely draw huge traffic, partnerships, and revenues.
I’ve just finished design work on a new service which integrates TV lsitings more tightly with a calendar system and alerts users when shows are about to start via various platforms.
This is a great overview Mike. Enable anyone to capture and record their choices and you have a killer app. I trust that ATT, Verizon and Comcast will support this some day. If the telcos aren’t thinking about how they can help their future IPTV consumers navigate all these choices then they won’t be adding enough value in my book.
I would consider these sites as well:
http://www.cozmomedia.com/
http://www.metacritic.com/tv/ (focuses on programming over detailed scheduling data)
pete
nice but I will love that some service works in Argentina.. some day..
Great post Evan Wired
Doesn’t really matter. No matter how you look at the listings – if there isn’t anything on there isn’t anything on
Like many others, I wish EvokeTV was listed in this article. It’s been fantastic and I haven’t wanted to look back at TVGuide or Yahoo TV ever again.
Mark Cuban mentioned this post on BlogMaverick, in case you’re interested…
Evan Wired: I don’t know about you, but the last time I saw a paper TV-guide was 1997. Perhaps you’re just a decade behind!
Zap2it has 1 MAJOR competitive feature. They have show descriptions directly in the grid view. For all the other ones, you have to click into the show to see the description.
So for me Zap2it wins big time!
Like the others, I noticed you forgot EvokeTV. I’ve been using this one for some time now and I wouldn’t consider another. It does its job easily and well – listing what’s on.
Tv Guide must reinvent itself with Unique Interviews of the latest Stars
Fascinating Trivia ,and Great Hi guality Pictures.
There is still room in society for a small-sized magazine, as a carry around for entertaning reading. Who wants to lug a laptop around or deal with the frustrating problems of Mobile devices or ebooks.
Jake #23: Every single week in the local paper (a Scripps-Howard paper) where my parents are there’s a separate booklet in the Sunday paper.
News for you, propeller-head: Most of the world is several years behind the edge.
The old paradigm of the TV Guide and other similar publications as a chronological style reference, becomes out-moded in a world where everything is on-demand.
The old function of a TV Guide, namely to help people find the best content, will always be valid, and with a logarithmic explosion in available content (traditional TV, user-generated, old archives coming on-line), the value of a ‘critic’, popularity chart, or taste learning system, becomes more important than ever.
One site not mentioned is WorldTV.com, which recently launched the Internet TV Charts, an aggregation of the most popular videos of the week from YouTube, Google Video and a couple other video sharing sites.
Great article BTW.
Based on the criteria in your chart, you should have just left TitanTV off. If you’d like to point out TitanTV’s unique features, you might consider adding categories on providing HD resolution and software PVR integration.
http://ww1.tita...rwatchfull.aspx
http://ww1.tita...me/hdtvfaq.aspx
Great overview, but you failed to mention that TitanTV.com is integrated with every PCTV and PCDTV hardware manufacturer in the world, i.e Point, Click and Record or Watch a la TiVo without TiVo…
I also think you were in the basic TitanTV guide because they have killer search and customization features.
Jake: Just as an FYI: TitanTV allows you to have descriptions in the grid cells as well… It’s one of the customization options in you member profile.
Agree somewhat with Evan, I only really care about finding what is on TV, not all the who’s doing what crap. I became familiar with TitanTV becuase it came with my tuner/PVR, plus it tells me what I can get digitally from local stations which turns out to be a lot more than what is on cable, and I could not find this info on TV Guide.
Why would you ever use a paper TV Guide when you can use an interactive guide designed for your specific TV watching habits? Only old age homes are using paper TV guides.
I just use the listings on the front page of http://tviv.org
I’ve been using EvokeTV since it started (around January, I believe). I think EvokeTV is best for my needs:
1) personalized views (by channel, by show rating)
2) it is integrated with 30boxes, the online calendar I use (which integrates nicely with iCal, Outlook, gCal, etc.)
The only thing it doesn’t have is being able to view all shows from one channel. Yahoo TV comes closest because it has this option AND it is integrated with TiVo. However, TiVo’s online scheduling feature is limited and thus I don’t use it anyway unless I’m traveling or need to record a show on the fly.
EvokeTV has a simple interface and it’s not bloated with distracting features.
>Why would you ever use a paper TV Guide when you can use an interactive guide designed for your specific TV watching habits?
Why is your TV “habit” (a telling word) so complex that you need something requiring so much investment of infrastructure?
What I would like to see is for cable and DSS providers to allow their customers select one of these “experiences” (a combination of a listings, GUI, recommendation engine, programing, search engine, syncing with a social site on the web or a video site like YouTube or GoogleVideo). It would be a layer in between the hardware/provider layer and the user. It probably won’t happen because of the industry-level psychological and legal evolution you mention.
The strategy would require the companies that are currently in this space to think of themselves as more of a commodity, providing the hardware, the network, and part of the content, and allowing the customer to choose the “experience.” So, you could throw TiVo in there as well (as one of these providers). Of course, bringing in more parties can add to the confusion in a customer service scenario. The customer will need to know who to contact when a problem occurs: service provider, hardware provider, UI/recommendation/search provider.
Or, perhaps these services could interface somehow with MythTV, and leverage the open source that it provides. Wow, there is just so many directions you can go in this space. The only service mentioned above that integrates with a set-top box (a TiVo) at this time is the Yahoo service. Perhaps the others should start partnering up with hardware makers such as Scientific-Atlanta/Cisco, Echostar, or Motorola. Hmm, this may limit choice. The key would really be for these companies feature in this post to form an alliance and standardize their service offerings to get the hardware makers and service providers to take them more seriously. If cable and satellite do not take notice, then it may all go to IPTV.
For a comprehensive UK listings (if not somewhat technically challenged) try http://www.digiguide.com and the online version http://www.mydigiguide.com they have been working on listings for a while and have done a nice job in the UK.
TV Guide did something smart – they saw the fact that their magazine is coming to an end and they creatively destroyed it. They changed their traditional tv guide into a weekly magazine. Of course now they have to compete with the likes of Ok!, People, and all of the other supermarket tabloids.
Creative destruction is hard to swallow, just ask Kodak — anyone remember them?
Has anyone see the redesigned TVGuide.com website?
Does anyone know of ANY TV listing site that allows a user to download a favorite show/movie to a calendar in .ical or .pst or .csv?
Yahoo, as of last week, discontinued the saving of shows into their own calendar, (what I then could save to a file and import to Outlook or Google). Unreal.
Also….dont forget Internet TV guides like Jeff Pulver’s http://network2.tv
Probably the oldest “Internet TV” guide (not to be confused with Internet “TV Guides”) is http://mefeedia.com.
What is missing in this article is a mention of the important shift in guidance from “what time is it on?” to “let me know when a new episode is available”. That is why we have Mefeedia Guides:
http://www.mefe...dia.com/guides/
Nice post. I should try this.