Star to Charge 39 Bucks a Year for TV Listings

by dataport on Nov.08, 2009, under Uncategorized

Star to Charge 39 Bucks a Year for TV Listings

Star To Charge 39 Bucks for TV Listings

I sorted through my Sunday paper this morning looking for the new TV Week. Couldn’t find it.

Well no wonder…it wasn’t there. What was there was magazine-sized offering called ON TV Magazine.* The price on the cover was $2.99, but as a special deal for me, because I was a Star subscriber, I could buy a year’s subscription for 39 bucks.

Apparently I have 3 trial issues left. After which, what?

That’s not perfectly clear. Is the star going to carry any TV listings as a free service to subscribers? I wrote the Star’s Executive Editor for clarification, but it’s Sunday so I haven’t received a reply.

I’m certainly not going to pay the 39 bucks. One of the reasons I subscribed to the Star was to get the Sunday TV listings. Since the Star is foolish enough to offer itself on line for free I might just cancel my subscription to the dead tree edition.

Are they shooting themselves in the foot here? Let’s hear from you.

*Lots of tiny type. If you’re over forty keep your reading glasses or a magnifier handy.

5 Comments for this entry

Silence Dogood
November 8th, 2009 on 5:24 pm
I have been a Star subscriber continuously for 35 years. I wondered why I didn’t get a TV Week today. I nearly chose not to renew the last time because the paper has gone seriously down hill. Their new strategy to rip off their loyal subscribers and further devalue the product will result in the cancellation of my subscription. Keep it up Lee Enterprises! Soon you will become known as an environmental company for saving all those trees that won’t be needed to produce your third rate product anymore, because nobody will want it.

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Tom Garrett
November 8th, 2009 on 5:28 pm
I too searched the Sunday paper for the TV section. I assumed that it was inadvertantly omitted. Now I know the truth. Thank you. But I will seriously consider cancelling my subscription.

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tiponeill
November 8th, 2009 on 6:35 pm
Why would you subscribe for TV listings when they are online for free ?

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Downtown Denizen
November 8th, 2009 on 9:18 pm
Folks, I’ve been trying to use the Star’s former TV listing for months. I have Direct TV and the cable movie times are wrong… 100 percent of the time. Why would I pay EXTRA for something that’s inaccurate?

I don’t watch TV enough to care. I’ll just flip around and if I see something I like, I’ll stop for a bit.

Good luck, Lee Enterprises.

PS == has the “new” Tucson Citizen commented on this past week’s buyouts and upcoming reorganization at the Star?

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Max Load
November 9th, 2009 on 2:06 pm
Everyone has their hand out. The reason you are now being asked to pay is because the service/provider that they had been getting listings from likely hiked *their* prices to the point it was economically infeasible, given the razor thin profit margins most dailies now operate from, to continue giving it away.
Another paper I know of switched days, from Sunday to Saturday, and only made the listings available by request to their subscribers. Don’t know if that was “shoot yerself in the foot move” or not, it’s too early to tell.
Chalk it up to a changing world, and hope that’s the worst thing we see before 2012.

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