For the last nine years, I have been paying my local newspaper (The Toronto Star) $14 a month for twice-a-week delivery (Saturdays and Sundays). I'm finally at a point where I can cancel my newspaper delivery for good. There are no more reasons to get it any more.
It's not like I read the paper. I rarely have the kind of time to spend the 45 minutes or so it takes to flip through a newspaper and read the interesting content within.
The only three reasons I subscribe to a newspaper are:
- Comic strips
- Movie listings
- TV guide
For this, I have been paying $14 a month. I no longer need #1 - I visit www.dilbert.com to get my fix. I no longer need #2 - my cell phone, for gosh sakes, has movie listings when I need it. And I visit www.toronto.com to get listings when I am home.
That leaves the TV guide. That's a tough problem to get around - my wife watches a lot of TV and likes to read the TV listings to let her know what interesting things will be on. (Basically, she plans her TV watching in advance.) Now, the digital cable box gives TV listings, and so does Channel 5 -- but those only show what is on now, not what is on next Wednesday. I could go to www.zap2it.com, but my wife doesn't use the Internet and even find the online services awkward and inconvenient. They are not easy to use.
That leaves TV Guide. Either you need to pay $1.50 at a retail store to get it (no cheaper than the newspaper), or get it delivered to your home for $.90 a week. It seems a bit expensive for what it is -- about $.10 of paper, plus $.20 of postage.
Many, many companies have access to this TV listings data. TiVo, zap2it, Channel 5, my digital cable box, newspapers... I wonder how much it would cost to get access to this data. Would people be willing to get a PDF file via email with a weeks worth of TV listings, ready to be printed? For $0.25 a week or $12 a year? I would pay for such a service - print the listings for my wife or leave it by the TV.
The Internet is all about giving people access to information on their terms. Magazines such as TV Guide, which are simply repositories for information, should be prime targets. It can be done better. Maybe I should try to do it better?