TV Guide magazine sold for a dollar

tvguide.com

Wow, Macrovision really wanted to get rid of the print edition of TV Guide, didn’t they? Hot on the heels of news that they sold the 55-year-old print edition to OpenGate Capital is the news that the selling price was $1. No, I did not forget to write “million” or “billion” after that $1; OpenGate bought the title for about the cost of a cup of coffee (food cart coffee, not the fancy-schmancy Starbucks kind).

According to the article in Ad Age, not only did Macrovision dump the title for a third of the cost of a single copy of the magazine ($2.99), they’re loaning OpenGate $9.3 million — at 3% interest — to operate it.

It’s no secret that Macrovision was looking to get rid of the print version soon after they purchased “the Guide” in January. And it’s also no secret that the print copy has become mostly irrelevant, especially since it shed its listings in 2005 and became a TV-centric version of Us Weekly. But a buck? Damn, had I known it was going to be that cheap, I would have bought it myself, just to get access to the archives.

Clacked by Joel Keller
on Oct 15, 2008 @ 20:00 EST5EDT