Come January, Gemstar's (NASDAQ:GMST) TV Guide will raise the price of its weekly television guide to $2.49 an issue. If you're shrugging your shoulders with a glazed, indifferent look, join the club. Over the years, your local paper has probably beefed up its television listings. Most cable and satellite companies now provide elaborate content schedules. And if you're a TiVo (NASDAQ:TIVO) owner, your viewing habits might even be on autopilot, with TiVo guiding you to programming that's up your alley.
So what gives here? Who is TV Guide to hike its retail price? Well, let's just say that it might have more prominent and creative placement than the supermarket checkout line. The publication will be teaming up with Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) to help enhance the product's marketing.
If you didn't know that the "time" in Time Warner stood for the eternally popular Time magazine and that the entertainment giant's publishing empire includes popular reads such as Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Money, read on. More importantly for TV Guide's audience, Time Warner is also the company behind Entertainment Weekly and People. Over the decades, as TV Guide has had to compete with a growing cast of listing alternatives, it has turned to provocative entertainment editorial content to win over the impulse shopper.
With Time Warner's marketing muscle, TV Guide will find more prominent shelf space at various retailers. Also in the works for the makeover later next year is the possibility of bumping up its publication date from Monday to Thursday. The tighter lead time will allow TV Guide to provide more timely -- and marketable -- content.
So even as your viewing options scroll into the hundreds and you're still lying on the couch, complaining that nothing's on, that long-forgotten TV Guide may yet come in handy when you want to be entertained.
Are you a television nut or do you eschew the boob tube? What are you watching these days? All this and more -- in the Television Banter discussion board. Only on Fool.com.
