• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 7, 2013

TV Guide has released an updated version of its app for Android that adds a number of features already available through its iOS app or at TVGuide.com. These include its Watchlist tool, which allows users to customize listings on a single screen by adding favorite shows, sports teams, actors and movies they want to track.

Other new features for the Android app include New Tonight Trending, which tracks social activity around TV programs, curated video channels, celebrity Watchlist videos, and original breaking news and features.

TV Guide says its Android and iOS apps to date have been downloaded more than 9 million times. And since the relaunch of its iOS app in August 2012, the number of monthly active users has doubled to more than 2.5 million. The release of the redesigned Android app marks its first major upgrade since 2010.

Like its iOS counterpart, the Android app will be ad-supported, offering marketers rich media units, a "native" ad unit around the Watchlist feature, sponsored video channels and cross-platform buys with TVGuide.com on the desktop. For 2013, the company says it has already booked one-and-a-half times the total ad revenue it had for mobile app advertising last year.
 
But not everybody is thrilled with the amount of ads in the iOS app.

A couple of recent comments on its page in the App Store complained of overly aggressive advertising in the TV Guide app, which has a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars in the Apple storefront. It competes with a number of other social TV apps including Viggle, GetGlue, and Zeebox.