Re: Zap2It's TV Listings Are Gone

On 2025-03-27 3:56 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-03-27 10:42 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

Apparently, within the last day, Zap2It's TV listing site is gone - it
now directs to a NewsNation schedule (which nobody wants!).
>
For now, it seems to still exist on Gracenote:
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https://tvlistings.gracenote.com/grid-affiliates.html?aid=lat
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But who knows how long this will last...
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FTR, TitanTV's guide also still exists:
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https://www.titantv.com/
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But they're another one that I wonder how much longer they can survive...
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So, are we soon heading to a time when online TV schedule guides no
longer exist?!!...
>
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I find that very strange. As a consumer of TV - as most of us are - I
would think TV listings would be a fundamental aspect of the TV
experience. After all, unless you're someone who merely uses TV as a
source of background noise as you go about your time at home and you
don't actually care what's on, you're probably going to want to know
what's on and when so that you can watch it (or set your PVR to record
it for you). If no one publishes listings, you're left to just flip the
channels until something catches your eye.
>
Could it be that the cable companies and streaming services are
gradually buying these listings services to shut them down so that their
customers don't even see - and maybe don't even know about - competing
shows? It would be interesting to contact zap2it to see why they stopped
producing listings. Were they having trouble getting information about
what was on? Were they finding that almost no one used the service so
they couldn't justify the cost?
>
Some years ago, I actually toyed with the idea of starting such a
service myself. I never did it but I could definitely see a market for a
reliable way to find out what's available to watch on whatever cable or
satellite or streaming services that people used. In fact, I still toy
with it. I would love to make definitive listings of every show on every
cable, satellite or streaming service in any language around the world
so that people could find out what's on wherever they are. Wouldn't that
be a cool and useful service? It ought to get use wherever people watch
TV, which is pretty much everywhere.
>
>

 I’ve been peripherally involved with a couple attempts over the years. You
have to understand that everyone involved in cable TV is stupid and
dishonest. Such efforts usually fall apart over in fighting such as them,
insisting that the day starts at 6 AM and not midnight because that’s how
TV guide used to do it.
 

Why would they even care about when the day starts?
In any case, you could let the user set the time when the day starts in their settings and then they could start the day at 6 AM, midnight, or any other time they wanted. As long as it was clear what time AND day the movie or episode was going to be shown it shouldn't be hard to display things the way the user wants. But you said they are stupid and dishonest so maybe that explains their strange attitude....
Do you know if the cable, satellite and streaming services charge people who want to put out listings? I've always wanted to assume that they'd be glad for people to know when they're shows are on and wouldn't charge for that information, even if it cost them something to compile the data. But if they want money for each and every episode and film, then the cost of making the listings obviously goes up, perhaps to the point where you have to charge people to see them over and above whatever ad revenue you could get from giving them the listings for free. That would be a key part of the business model.
--
Rhino