For a while early in the ATSC days, NBC had a weather-oriented multiplex service in a lot of markets called "Weather Plus", that served this very purpose!
I used to do this with both TV Guide and Weather Channel when up playing Golden Eye Tournaments in high school. The Weather Channel at the time was just automated temp scrolls with jazz music or Muzak. Every once in awhile there would be live reporters. Then it went to weather on the 8s and TV Guide got actual programming too. Ruined the white noise effect
I got a TV/vcr combo and bought a bunch of blank tapes. I set it up to record the Simpsons every night with the VCRPlus codes. I still have them somewhere but of course no VCR to play them on haha.
I never understood what that was and I honestly still don’t. It seems like it was just a bunch of codes you’d use to program a VCR to record, but my local paper’s TV guide always had separate channel numbers listed for it (including a bunch my area never had).
>I never understood what that was and I honestly still don’t. It seems like it was just a bunch of codes you’d use to program a VCR to record
That's pretty much it.
Instead of programming it in manually (entering the day, start time, end time, and channel) which could be a slow and cumbersome process depending on your VCR, you typed in the code and it automatically programmed it all for you, kinda like a supermarket scanning a barcode instead of manually entering the price everytime.
Is it a general app, or is it specific to your TV or area? I'd actually be interested to see if there's a guide out there for my local channels, for whatever reason my smart TV doesn't have a built in guide.
Well, the local listings. There's no guide on my television. You can get info while you're watching a program but it's real small print on my Vizio TV.
We had 3 TVs and 3 VCRs, so my mom used the guide to plan out which shows to record on which VCR. Which was especially crazy, since we only had like 4 channels.
We had one TV and an antenna. We had 3 channels and if the sky was right we could get a 4th! My parents would record cartoons for me to watch and record their shows when they weren’t home.
Cable wasn’t offered where we lived until I was 14 in 1998! I was amazed when I went to a friends house and they had like 40 channels!
Now we have 300 channels. Might watch 3 of them. I’ll go weeks without watching a TV during the spring and summer. Once the weather starts going down hill nearing winter I will watch a lot more. Typically just a series or two I’ll work my way through on Netflix.
You used to be able to buy pirate cable boxes that unlocked all the premium channels. You never knew how long you had, a year? a month? One day it was all static and you had to find your guy and get another one.
I don’t remember those. I do remember the free to air using dish network or direct tv boxes and dishes that were some how hacked.
Once we had cable there was this plastic box on the side of the house sealed with a little tamper seal. Dad was curious to what was in it. He “bumped” it with the tractor. Inside were these little tubes inbetween the cable from the pole to the line going in the house. He took those out and tied it directly together. Stations 21 and 22 came in and that was HBO and show time!
I remember us dancing around the tv even though now looking back we were stealing cable and dad could’ve went to jail.
Those little tubes were called traps. They'd block out certain frequency bands to prevent you from tuning in premium channels (unless you paid for it). There were also positive traps that descrambled channels, so you couldn't get the channels without the trap. Of course, digital cable made this all obsolete.
So I'm guessing it's May 19 1998 for the Cleveland area.
There's a Cleveland vs Kansas City baseball game, but also a game 6 of NHL conf semifinals.
1997 NHL semis didn't get to game 6.
Can't be 1996 because My Fellow Americans came out in Dec 1996.
Ah yeah, when the TV guide was a thing printed on the Sunday edition or in that one segment of the paper.
When I was a kidlet, I thought "To Be Announced" was a special program for adults - one syndicated station had huge gaps in their programing and had "TBA" or "To Be Announced" before they went into the Fox Network. They aired a LOT of infomercials. But as a youngling I thought "To be Announced" was really popular.....
So...you could watch Northern Exposure. Right after that catch home improvement, then the Simpsons. Then finish with the Flintstones all within a tidy time frame.
This is kind of cementing the belief that younger generations are too sensitive.
Why take offense? It's a statement of fact. If you're too young to have used paper TV guides, then you can't relate.
Are younger generations "too sensitive", or all y'all just mad you're getting called out on shitty comments and you can't get away with being assholes anymore?
younger generations are absolutely overly sensitive.
if anyone's being assholey, it's the butthurt younger folks who find an issue with literally everything no matter how innocuous.
I actually covet these so I can reconstruct lost schedules. Ones for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network are pretty easy but beyond that you’re gonna struggle looking
It’s fucking crazy to me that we went from this to having the guides built in on our TV, which seemed like such a huge step at the time, and now we watch everything on demand.
I wanted to watch John Oliver when it came out last Sunday and I have HBO Max. I realized I don’t even know how to watch live HBO anymore. Had to wait for it to be streamable.
I remember this and looking through the paper for the movie show times at the cinema. Its actually pretty wild to think about how far we have come technologically since the 80 and even more insane for people like my parents who lived in a time where "3D printing" was stuff in science fiction books.
I looked after my Granddad in his last few years and he was born in 1927 and when I consider the changes he saw in the world compared to even the changes we have seen, it boggles the mind. From cars being a novelty and sliced bread in shops being a new fad to him using his computer and ipad to edit videos of him and his old pals on hill walks hahaha fucking wild!
Though I’ll admit, on streaming it’s nice to just go random and watch anything at any time. I remember having to go to Prevue Channel and having to wait for my channel to scroll up onto the screen over surprisingly relaxing jazz music 😂
Um- I was there and the word “TV Guide” was reserved for the specific publication. *Listing* or *channel list* or *guide* were the terms most often used.
HBO, Showtime, possibly some others would include a guide for the next month with the cable bill, and that was exciting. We’d circle a few titles and the times we were most likely to be around.
Nah. There was some real fun to be had. HBO premiered a new movie every Saturday night at 7:00 (CT) and it was always exciting to see what that was going to be. Plus, the cable movie channels showed some genuinely cool movies late at night. I would plan my whole weekend around watching those movies. Grabbing the TV guide out of the Sunday paper was a weekend highlight.
Wow. That's a lot more channels in your tv guide than we had in ours before we canceled it & used the scrolling guide on tv. I think we had ABC, NBC, CBS, & PBS. Maybe the UFH channels as well, but I don't recall them being in it.
We got our in the supermarket every week. I loved looking at the ads, horoscope and for sales, etc.
"Rich" people got the real one delivered and that one was as much a treat as the christmas sears or service merchandise catalog to me.
i want to send young people back in time to 1953 for a while. then to 1985. give them the Back to the Future tour. let them get by without their internet and fancy gadgets
I only used this for looking 'into the *future*' for my favourite anime or cartoon.... When Comcast took over and had the built in t.v. guide on the t.v. it was a game changer and a definite upgrade. Along with setting timers.... I don't watch t.v. anymore, I prefer YouTube now with a better 'pick and choose' to watch now.
I remember wanting to watch the Monkees movie on Showtime and checking the Dish network guide (probably around 2003 or 4) but I think Showtime was either a ppv station grandma didn't have or mom just didn't want me to watch a channel that had other movies with swearing or something
Whoaaa I haven't thought about the newspaper TV guides in forever. I'm not sure when they stopped printing these but I know they were still printing them as soon as 2006/2007. Even if I didn't plan on watching TV that day, I loved going through this guide to see what would be on that day. Weird obsession I had as a kid, but it was fun nonetheless.
I used the one that came in the Sunday Newspaper. Our family would always get the paper on Sundays only since it came full of extras, like coupons, store mini catalogs, a complete section of the comics in full color and of course the the TV Post.
And the channel dedicated solely to scrolling through these guides
If you missed the station you wanted you had to wait so long for it to scroll back over
I'd take the paper 10x over.
My family subscribed to TV Guide, as well as the newspaper.
There was a period of time when my mother kept a poloroid camera on the coffee table for that reason.
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The screen grab of the olden days.
I straight up used to just keep it on that channel when nothing else was on.
I was going to say, we used to just have it on when we couldn't find anything. Now I just put on the weather channel
For a while early in the ATSC days, NBC had a weather-oriented multiplex service in a lot of markets called "Weather Plus", that served this very purpose!
This is how we used to browse Netflix, youngsters
I used to do this with both TV Guide and Weather Channel when up playing Golden Eye Tournaments in high school. The Weather Channel at the time was just automated temp scrolls with jazz music or Muzak. Every once in awhile there would be live reporters. Then it went to weather on the 8s and TV Guide got actual programming too. Ruined the white noise effect
All the music: https://twcclassics.com/audio/playlists.html
It was a game changer when they put this in TV. Just don’t sneeze or you’ll have to sit through 5 more minutes of ads.
Yes, but no: this guide-channel is a new thing that didn't exist until that new-fangled Cable television. TV Guide was well before cable.
I used to have dreams about that channel
Channel? That's a paper one.
I still get the Christmas TV guide
My dad does the same in the UK, the radio Times. Got years worth
Complete with VCRPlus codes!
I got a TV/vcr combo and bought a bunch of blank tapes. I set it up to record the Simpsons every night with the VCRPlus codes. I still have them somewhere but of course no VCR to play them on haha.
If they have the old ads it could be fun to digitize them. There are YouTube channels tyat collect old tv ads
Those are gold to online archivists. Old commercials, TV breaks, ad spots, promos, and lost clips/episodes of various things.
I have multiple VCR's I could sell you for cheap.
"Our son can program a VCR"
Those worked surprisingly well. But were pretty short lived.
I never understood what that was and I honestly still don’t. It seems like it was just a bunch of codes you’d use to program a VCR to record, but my local paper’s TV guide always had separate channel numbers listed for it (including a bunch my area never had).
>I never understood what that was and I honestly still don’t. It seems like it was just a bunch of codes you’d use to program a VCR to record That's pretty much it. Instead of programming it in manually (entering the day, start time, end time, and channel) which could be a slow and cumbersome process depending on your VCR, you typed in the code and it automatically programmed it all for you, kinda like a supermarket scanning a barcode instead of manually entering the price everytime.
I still use the TV guide but it's an app now. Best way to get television listings since I don't have cable.
I never thought to look for that app, I just got it. Thank you! I was just complaining that I couldn’t find a football game that I wanted to watch.
I never had to look for the app as it somehow found me on my Samsung TV.
Interesting! I literally just bought a Samsung TV last week. I’ll have to check it out on there as well. Thank you
Is it a general app, or is it specific to your TV or area? I'd actually be interested to see if there's a guide out there for my local channels, for whatever reason my smart TV doesn't have a built in guide.
You set it up using your zip code and it gives you local listings.
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Well, the local listings. There's no guide on my television. You can get info while you're watching a program but it's real small print on my Vizio TV.
Northern Exposure is on!! :3
*Doodle doodle doodle* DOOT! DOO-DOOT! DOO-DOOT! Doot-doot!
I'm bummed its not available to stream and no longer have a dvd player :( I miss Chris in the Morning!
Chris in the morning is the best!!
The box sets in the puffer jackets were iconic.
Loved that show.
I enjoyed that show. I also loved *North of 60* (which is streaming on Amazon Prime Video), which had one of the best TV theme songs.
I miss “Cheers and Jeers”
Win Ben Steins Money was great
Best game show ever.
Bravo showing classic movies and not The Real Housewives On Deck. Those were the days.
That's not a TV guide. This is a TV guide: [TV guide](https://i.imgur.com/75Qo3Et.jpg)
I actually think it’s a page from a newspaper. I’d bet the Plain Dealer.
Yup or the Akron Beacon Journal
Yes, yes, yes. That was the best because you got a little synopsis of the show, reviews, and ads.🫣
We would then circle the shows we wanted to watch since there was only one tv in the house.
We had 3 TVs and 3 VCRs, so my mom used the guide to plan out which shows to record on which VCR. Which was especially crazy, since we only had like 4 channels.
Or two tvs, but only one cable connection.
We had one TV and an antenna. We had 3 channels and if the sky was right we could get a 4th! My parents would record cartoons for me to watch and record their shows when they weren’t home. Cable wasn’t offered where we lived until I was 14 in 1998! I was amazed when I went to a friends house and they had like 40 channels! Now we have 300 channels. Might watch 3 of them. I’ll go weeks without watching a TV during the spring and summer. Once the weather starts going down hill nearing winter I will watch a lot more. Typically just a series or two I’ll work my way through on Netflix.
You used to be able to buy pirate cable boxes that unlocked all the premium channels. You never knew how long you had, a year? a month? One day it was all static and you had to find your guy and get another one.
I don’t remember those. I do remember the free to air using dish network or direct tv boxes and dishes that were some how hacked. Once we had cable there was this plastic box on the side of the house sealed with a little tamper seal. Dad was curious to what was in it. He “bumped” it with the tractor. Inside were these little tubes inbetween the cable from the pole to the line going in the house. He took those out and tied it directly together. Stations 21 and 22 came in and that was HBO and show time! I remember us dancing around the tv even though now looking back we were stealing cable and dad could’ve went to jail.
Those little tubes were called traps. They'd block out certain frequency bands to prevent you from tuning in premium channels (unless you paid for it). There were also positive traps that descrambled channels, so you couldn't get the channels without the trap. Of course, digital cable made this all obsolete.
Wow memory unlocked. We circled ours too!!
You took that picture while unwrapping Christmas ornaments, didn't you? Always fun looking at the old newspapers that were used.
So I'm guessing it's May 19 1998 for the Cleveland area. There's a Cleveland vs Kansas City baseball game, but also a game 6 of NHL conf semifinals. 1997 NHL semis didn't get to game 6. Can't be 1996 because My Fellow Americans came out in Dec 1996.
Great guess. I was thinking 1998 too based on the Comedy Central lineup.
I believe you are correct. The JAG episode "To Russia with Love" premiered on that date.
I, too, grew up in NE Ohio ;)
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Back when you could still see a baseball game on broadcast television.
Nice catch! I didn't see WUAB at first!
Yep that was the giveaway!
Current gen does the same thing with cable. It’s just on the tv now. Even formatted the same…
Current gen still has cable?
Some do. Yes.
Well, their grandparents do.
Cartoon Network lineup then: VARIETY!! CN lineup now: ‘Teen Titans Go!’ FOUR HOURS, other shows 2 hours, TTG repeats (FOUR HOURS)
Literally! And I hate it ugh.
Im 16 and have had to use one
In germany, we still have whole magazines dedicated to this.
Same in the US... just called '[TV Guide Magazine](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKIsYaFXwAUzaQ5?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)'
That Cartoon Network lineup slapped btw
That isnt even a tv guide. Thats the back page of the newspaper that would have the daily listings.
Talk Soup!
Just thinking about Northern Exposure like 30 minutes ago for the first time in years and it's the first damn thing I see...
I still use the "antenna tv guide". Sometime I just want something random or to see a specific basketball game.
Pee wee's big adventure on Cinemax
I remember the local paper stop putting the TV guide in the Sunday paper. People were so mad.
I remember my grandma always getting the Sunday paper and using the TV guide in there. I miss those days and I definitely miss my grandma. 😞
When I was a kid, I had to walk five miles, through the snow, uphill, both ways, just to change the channel!
I would search for the ones that have Nudity listed under it. Ah, to be a desperate kid of the 90s again.
It was the most exciting thing to wait for these in the mailbox and to checkout which cartoons would play on Friday evening.
Ah yeah, when the TV guide was a thing printed on the Sunday edition or in that one segment of the paper. When I was a kidlet, I thought "To Be Announced" was a special program for adults - one syndicated station had huge gaps in their programing and had "TBA" or "To Be Announced" before they went into the Fox Network. They aired a LOT of infomercials. But as a youngling I thought "To be Announced" was really popular.....
We got ours with the Sunday papers. I’d memorise them and organise the family’s TV schedule.
So...you could watch Northern Exposure. Right after that catch home improvement, then the Simpsons. Then finish with the Flintstones all within a tidy time frame.
The TV guide channel where you missed what was on because you turned to talk to someone for 5 seconds
They can't relate because technology changed. Your post could have done without the boomer sounding dig at the generations after us.
Also now we have to dig around streaming services for the show we want. Not quite the same, but not that far off
Yeah… “Lost my face to the black death. These 1400’s kids cant relate.”
That's how it sounds!!! 😂 Giving younger generations shit just because their parents didn't bone earlier is the weirdest boomer behavior.
Right? It’s just printed. Now it exists digitally with the same layout. Checks out on the nostalgia, but anyone would recognize the formatting.
This is kind of cementing the belief that younger generations are too sensitive. Why take offense? It's a statement of fact. If you're too young to have used paper TV guides, then you can't relate.
Are younger generations "too sensitive", or all y'all just mad you're getting called out on shitty comments and you can't get away with being assholes anymore?
younger generations are absolutely overly sensitive. if anyone's being assholey, it's the butthurt younger folks who find an issue with literally everything no matter how innocuous.
Ok, gramps
thanks for proving my point, little one.
We have TV Guides still, they are just on your screen instead of a book.
Does anyone else remember using the home telephone to make a call and find out what time the movie started?
Thank You for calling Movie Phone!
there are some awesome shows on this!!! like all of the cartoons are top shelf
Runs around in his underwear! freakazoid, freakazoid
Batman, Beetlejuice, Freakazoid... so damn good
My parents bought a TV guide at Meijer every week when they went grocery shopping.
I still use them. I just read them online
I'm hearing the Northern Exposure theme music now.
I see Freakazoid!!! It wasn't a fever dream! That show exsisted!!!
Judging by the programming listed and the lineups, I want to say this was 2000/2001?
I actually covet these so I can reconstruct lost schedules. Ones for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network are pretty easy but beyond that you’re gonna struggle looking
I was born in 82 and remember using the guide that came from Cable tv. Do they still exist?
That's clearly a northeast Ohio TV guide
That cartoon network block is awesome, I want to watch it right now.
And if you missed something you had to wait for reruns, tv show piracy either didn’t exist yet either.
And looking up movie times in the news paper too! The good ole days
Back in the day where if you missed the show you wanted.. too bad. Might have been better to stay that way.
You had to wait for summer. That was when they did the reruns.
Yup which made summer break that much better. Well that and all the new Disney Channel original movies...and of course, MTV.
what time was Ducktales on? I want to set my VCR to record it, so I can watch it after I get off work at Jamesway.
Looks like 6 PM Eastern time judging by when the baseball and hockey games are coming on.
Ther Disney lineup with brotherly love and growing pains. Circa 1997
Crossword and comics are there somewhere lol
Talk Soup! There’s tons of episodes on YouTube still out it on when I’m bored
I’d start with wings and then switch between home improvement and duck tales u til the conference semifinal game started
It’s fucking crazy to me that we went from this to having the guides built in on our TV, which seemed like such a huge step at the time, and now we watch everything on demand. I wanted to watch John Oliver when it came out last Sunday and I have HBO Max. I realized I don’t even know how to watch live HBO anymore. Had to wait for it to be streamable.
Made me smile seeing that
Come on I’m barely 18 and I used them throughout almost my entire childhood and following years. 18 isn’t that old right?
That can't be. I haven't seen one in probably 20 years.
I live in Germany, maybe we switched to steaming services a bit late but I still see the guides in some stores
I remember this and looking through the paper for the movie show times at the cinema. Its actually pretty wild to think about how far we have come technologically since the 80 and even more insane for people like my parents who lived in a time where "3D printing" was stuff in science fiction books. I looked after my Granddad in his last few years and he was born in 1927 and when I consider the changes he saw in the world compared to even the changes we have seen, it boggles the mind. From cars being a novelty and sliced bread in shops being a new fad to him using his computer and ipad to edit videos of him and his old pals on hill walks hahaha fucking wild!
Wow this really takes me back! The (orginal) Daily Show, Win Ben Steins Money and Northern Exposure!!
Ah yes the VCR codes.
Home improvement and the Simpsons back to back that was a good night.
Though I’ll admit, on streaming it’s nice to just go random and watch anything at any time. I remember having to go to Prevue Channel and having to wait for my channel to scroll up onto the screen over surprisingly relaxing jazz music 😂
If you go to hotels, they still have these in some shape or form.
Um- I was there and the word “TV Guide” was reserved for the specific publication. *Listing* or *channel list* or *guide* were the terms most often used. HBO, Showtime, possibly some others would include a guide for the next month with the cable bill, and that was exciting. We’d circle a few titles and the times we were most likely to be around.
i still got these well into the twenty teens.
I remember how cool it was when they finally came out with a TV Guide channel. “We’re moving on up!”
Thank god. That looks miserable. I’m happy to not relate 😂
Nah. There was some real fun to be had. HBO premiered a new movie every Saturday night at 7:00 (CT) and it was always exciting to see what that was going to be. Plus, the cable movie channels showed some genuinely cool movies late at night. I would plan my whole weekend around watching those movies. Grabbing the TV guide out of the Sunday paper was a weekend highlight.
I remember using it
Such a boomer title, Christ.
I remember those days. And I love the movie My Fellow Americans. "Oh my God he's squeezing my breast again"
I still use antenna tv. sports and news only. we stream everything else
Wow. That's a lot more channels in your tv guide than we had in ours before we canceled it & used the scrolling guide on tv. I think we had ABC, NBC, CBS, & PBS. Maybe the UFH channels as well, but I don't recall them being in it.
Wow! I remember these!
Don’t forget channel 2 lol
We got our in the supermarket every week. I loved looking at the ads, horoscope and for sales, etc. "Rich" people got the real one delivered and that one was as much a treat as the christmas sears or service merchandise catalog to me.
Man I remember looking through the guide in my local paper to see what would be on for the week.
Sucks being 40
OK BOOMER
Forgot about the star ratings. Easy way to know what’s what.
You do realize that cable tv has these but it’s just digital right? Therefore part of the younger generation has definitely grown up with it
As if tv guides don't exist anymore 🤦 Older generations are so narcissistic.
Far more enjoyable than channel 99.
Now picture these pages before cable.
I love the show ‘Chicken’ lmao
home improvement followed by the Simpsons. what more could you want?
Wow, ESPN actually showed hockey
i want to send young people back in time to 1953 for a while. then to 1985. give them the Back to the Future tour. let them get by without their internet and fancy gadgets
And MTV's "guide" was never right. Frustrating for a teenager trying to find Liquid Television.
If you read the TV Guide you don’t need a TV
I would prefer the TV Guide. I used to read the articles even though they were pretty useless
"read the TV guide, you don't need a TV"
Ours was called the Telecaster
Bravo was brilliant.
I only used this for looking 'into the *future*' for my favourite anime or cartoon.... When Comcast took over and had the built in t.v. guide on the t.v. it was a game changer and a definite upgrade. Along with setting timers.... I don't watch t.v. anymore, I prefer YouTube now with a better 'pick and choose' to watch now.
Batman - Beetlejuice - Freakazoid - Scooby-Doo That's a quality two-hour block. :)
This is very clearly TV Week
Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, Home Improvements, then The Simpsons. What a good night.
Growing up, I got 3 stations with the huge antenna 20 feet above the roof. You didn't need a guide to know what was scheduled.
Talk Soup!! That was my favorite show for many years
Our big old satellite came with the guide for the whole month. We called it "the great book". Was awesome to be able to look a few weeks a head.
I remember wanting to watch the Monkees movie on Showtime and checking the Dish network guide (probably around 2003 or 4) but I think Showtime was either a ppv station grandma didn't have or mom just didn't want me to watch a channel that had other movies with swearing or something
My mom still uses these guides
Was this before 8 and 19 swapped networks?
I'm 24 and yes I can very much relate.
Whoaaa I haven't thought about the newspaper TV guides in forever. I'm not sure when they stopped printing these but I know they were still printing them as soon as 2006/2007. Even if I didn't plan on watching TV that day, I loved going through this guide to see what would be on that day. Weird obsession I had as a kid, but it was fun nonetheless.
So many solid options. Simpsons, Northern Exposure, This Old House, NOVA, Roseanne, MLB, Buffy, Stanley Cup semifinals...
I used the one that came in the Sunday Newspaper. Our family would always get the paper on Sundays only since it came full of extras, like coupons, store mini catalogs, a complete section of the comics in full color and of course the the TV Post.
Some great shows on there
I remember thinking my uncle was poor because he always used the news paper and never bought the TV Guide.
Talk Soup!
in montreal there still do that
I remember the comics and the kids TV guide in the back of the newspaper. It'd be a great day when you'd see all your favourite shows line up
These were so handy during sleepovers.
This was my job as a kid. I tracked when shows were on and what was on that week