In the years I have been reader advocate, the Sunday TV Week publication has been a source of periodic comment. Folks who have only rabbit ears or basic cable rely on the booklet to plan their daily viewing.
Those residents who have more than basic cable or some sort of dish TV reception have on-screen guides, so they do not have to use the TV Week .
Apparently, those readers who tried to plan their morning weekday viewing from last Sunday’s booklet ran into a problem: Instead of the morning programs, they found the weekday TV listings for evening.
This is not an isolated incident; TV Week has had other similar complaints in the past. Like other parts of The Salt Lake Tribune, the television booklet has shrunk. The late, late night listings disappeared. Comprehensive listings for all the days of the week have gone the way of the dodo.
Some readers have accused us of hating TV and thus shrinking the number of pages in the TV book.
Other readers this week told us to “cut the crap about soap operas and children’s programs out and put the overnight listings back.”
According to Tribune Deputy Editor Tim Fitzpatrick, the foul-up this week happened when Tribune Media Services (owned by the company that owns The Chicago Tribune ) sent the wrong listings. The mistake was not caught by MediaOne, the company that prints the papers for both The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News . The corrected listings were printed in Monday’s and Thursday’s paper.
I have said this before: The second-most expensive cost factor for newspapers (behind employees) is paper. And when push comes to hard shove, The Tribune has to make some tough decisions about what parts of the paper will survive.
At this time, TV Week is automatically stuffed into the papers delivered in the Salt Lake Valley, but it’s not included in all papers. Subscribers outside of the valley can call 801-204-6100 and tell the customer service representative they want the TV book on Sundays.
Lonely birthdays For months readers have called and asked why we do not print celebrity birthdays on Fridays and Sundays.
The answer is: We don’t have room because of special features on those days. This is a dissatisfying answer. If one’s birthday happens to fall on a Friday or a Sunday on any given year, then he or she cannot take satisfaction in being born on the same day as some celebrity other than The Octomom. (I share my birthday with Peter Fonda.)
Lisa Carricaburu, assistant managing editor for features and sports, says the problem arises when a certain advertisement runs on the page with daily TV listings, thus cutting room where the birthdays would appear. “We try to run them the day before or the day after when the ad appears,” Carricaburu says. “But sometimes we just have no space to run them.”
Too tiny to read? Complaints about the size of the type in the Sports statistics continue. Since my desk is now located on the edge of the Sports department, I have discussed this problem over and over with the staff.
Their reply: Changing to a larger point size would involve redesigning the page where the statistics are run and eliminating some of the statistics.
My reply to their reply: Redesign the page. If readers cannot make out the small type, then we are wasting space printing anything that small. And, in today’s world, a newspaper cannot afford to waste anything.
