• Associated Press, Friday, May 2, 2008 10:45 AM

Editor-in-Chief Ian Birch and at least two other senior staff members were laid off from TV Guide Wednesday as parent company Gemstar-TV Guide International prepared to sell itself to Macrovision Corp., a video technology company, today. Macrovision will consider selling some Gemstar assets after the $2.8 billion deal closes, including the TV Guide print magazine and the TV Guide cable channel.

The publication, once a staple of living rooms across America, has struggled since TV providers started offering on-screen programming guides. In mid-2005, the magazine slashed its guaranteed circulation by two-thirds and relaunched in a larger size, but newsstand sales continued to tumble-from 330,000 in 2005 to 226,000 last year.

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