• by September 9, 2003

We See Dead Magazines. Well, dying ones, anyway. That's what one would have to conclude after learning of TV Guide's new reader proposition and cover logo: "We see everything." In an age where time-crunched and content-saturated consumers are more apt to focus only on all the stuff that's fit to print, TV Guide is emphasizing the depth and breadth of a TV universe that already has grown too overwhelming for most viewers and, arguably, for any printed guide. Just look at the stats: TV Guide's circulation has been pared from more than 19 million in its heyday during the 1970s to roughly 9 million today. While the company claims this was part of an intentional strategy to create a smaller, but higher quality and more profitable rate base, media buyers are beginning to see blood in the water. And it's not just the salmon-colored paper the newly redesigned guide's movie listing are printed on. It's the fact that TV Guide has plans to spend $10 million on consumer marketing just to add another 750,000 new subscribers by year-end. But the issues seem deeper than what simple magazine redesigns and consumer marketing campaigns may be able to address. In a bottomless world of TV content options, TV viewers are becoming their own listings editors via some of the very same interactive program guide technology developed by TV Guide parent Gemstar. But this is merely a baby step toward what viewers will really want and need to surf the nets: a Web-like search engine. Think Google for TV.

It's not often that the Riff can feel smug about having missed the boat on the latest media rage, but there we were still trying to figure out how to sample, much less download and burn audio tracks (did we get those terms right?) when the music industry suddenly flexes its legal muscles. But now with 11-year-olds and working moms facing stiff fines and the possibility of hard time, we have to suppress the urge to say, "We told you so." We also can't help wondering whether this may ultimately prove to be a public relations blunder and the final straw that brings the record industry to oblivion. Clearly, the studios are desperate to halt piracy, but this particular battle would seem better fought on the consumer marketing front than in the courts. After all, it is their consumer base that they're going after. And it's not that we don't support the rights of legitimate copyright holders to protect their licenses and reap fair payment for their soft wares, it's just the economic model for all forms of publishing - including musical tracks - appears to be shifting and it seems no one - accept maybe Apple Computer - is paying attention. The recording companies have never been particular adept at seizing on new business models, but in the end they always seemed to figure out how to get it done. We recall a similar period in the mid-1980s when the emergence of video music channels was driving studio chiefs crazy. At first, they tried charging the MTVs of the world to carry their music videos. In the end, they realized the benefits of providing the content for free, and MTV began to rival radio as the most important promotional platform for music sales.

Just when it looked like the Riff's marriage had finally stabilized, the social trend gurus at Motown agency Campbell-Ewald tell us we may need to fret over mom's and dad's. Divorce, it seems, is rising among the empty-nesters at an alarming rate and at least one factor may be an indirect consequence of a successful ad campaign and new product launch. "As for older men, the libido-enhancing pharmaceuticals are giving them the ability to re-sow their wild oats," reports the agency in the July/August issue of its Social Change Briefs report. We had no idea. We thought all those smiley-faced, gray-haired gents in those Viagra ads were simply rekindling their marriage vows. But according to C-E, the current thinking is that the institution of marriage was only supposed to last as long as the longevity - 40 to 50 years - of the time in which it was conceived. So thanks to modern medicine, we have people living longer and virile enough to have more than a second thought.