Eureka Reporter Leads T/S With TV Guide

One of the reasons we've subscribed to the Times- Standard over the years is to get the weekly TV guide that comes each Sunday. Naturally, the Eureka Reporter would want to have one as well if they wanted to stay competitive. So, a few weeks ago, the Reporter sent out its first TV Spotlight.

I was happy enough with the old Times- Standard TV guide but decided to try the Spotlight and see if it had any advantages over the Times- Standard. First observation was that the Spotlight was pretty big and I thought that made it a little unwieldy for making a quick check of TV show while laying on the couch but I let that go. Then I noticed something not so good: Unless I missed it, they didn't have any channel numbers listed. All they had was station designations like CBS, A&E or Disc. I usually can't remember channel numbers for those stations off the top of my head, with the exception of the History Channel. I pointed the lack of channel designations out to the wife and she said, "that's pretty lame...".

So, I wait until today, eager to see if they fixed that snafu and, if nothing else, to grab the good ol' trusty Times- Standard TV Guide which, for some reason, either wasn't included in last Sunday's paper or I'd misplaced somewhere. I'd needed it last week to figure out what channels everything was on.

I go through the T/S this morning and find that they've followed the Reporter and are now using the Select TV guide, having replaced the old TV guide they used for years. Damn, says I. I liked the older one but I guess this will have to do. It looked like the Reporter's Spotlight. Same size, anyway. I open it and first thing I notice is it also doesn't have channel listings, either, except for six channels starting at 3 and ending at 29. All the rest are just letters and names. Sheesh. Things never get better do they?

So I go out to look for the Reporter and find it on the sidewalk. With the rain, the paper was a bit wet and almost unusable despite the plastic wrapper. Thankfully, the Reporter had made changes. Now the Reporter has numerical channel designations on the daily TV tables so you know where to turn. Let's see if the T/S follows their lead and makes the fix as well. Still, the old T/S guide that was 8.5" x 11" was a lot handier to deal with.

Kudos to the Reporter for the fix and roasts to the Times- Standard for following the Reporter and changing their TV Guide in the first place. If it ain't broke, don't try and fix it.