• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, October 7, 2015

Yes, it still exists, and yes, it’s being sold yet again. TV Guide, that venerable staple of doctors’ waiting rooms and magazine baskets by the easy chair (remember magazine baskets?) is changing hands. OpenGate Capital is selling TVGM Holdings, which owns both TV Guide Magazine and TVInsider.com, to NTVB Media, which publishes TV Weekly, among a number of other cable TV and satellite TV publications.

According to NTVB, the deal will create the largest group of print publications targeting TV watchers, by combining TV Guide’s 1.8 million subscribers and NTVB’s 1 million subscribers.

NTVB President and CEO Andy DeAngelis took the same resolute line as TV Guide’s many previous owners — that the proliferation of video programming means people need a trusted source to find the good stuff, in essence curating TV programming.

DeAngelis stated: “Now more than ever, viewers need a trusted guide to the vast array of available programming. By adding TVGM to our existing roster of TV-centric publications, we will be able to do more than anyone else to help them cut through the clutter and find the programming they want and value.”

DeAngelis also noted that TV Guide, which went through a rough financial spot last decade, has been profitable every year since 2009.

That stance has been central to TV Guide’s reinvention in the age of time-shifted, on-demand programming as a celebrity-driven, entertainment-focused magazine. While a print publication devoted to TV might seem a bit anomalous with the rise of over-the-top Internet video -- which basically means that anything can now be TV -- the truth is there’s still a lot to talk about.

Even when you define the field narrowly as traditional broadcast and cable TV.

Indeed, people are always saying this is the “golden age of TV,” and it’s better now than I ever remember. From a casual observer’s perspective, something seemed to happen beginning with “The Sopranos,” and I guess people realized they didn’t have to keep turning out crap TV (although there’s still plenty of that).

The new generation of non-crap programs, which center heavily on plot, story-telling and character development, lend themselves to more in-depth discussion and serial coverage. The same trend is visible in the rise of the online recap, which would be hard to imagine for “Full House,” but makes perfect sense for something as dense, compelling, and often confusing as “True Detective.”

Actor profiles and celebrity features also make a lot more sense when the actors can actually, you know, act.

At this point, I will basically read whatever someone publishes about Peter Dinklage. And when it comes to Dinklage coverage, TV Guide delivers.