Coffee tables may never be the same.
TV Guide, the venerable source of television listings that's been published in Canada for the past 30 years, will cease to exist next month as a paper magazine.
In the latest example of the increasing impact the Internet is having on traditional publications, the book of celebrity gossip and program schedules will shift entirely to the Web.
Transcontinental Inc., the Montreal-based publisher of TV Guide in Canada, is converting the magazine to an Internet publication Nov. 28.
The last issue will hit newsstands three days before the torch is officially passed from paper and ink to the Internet.
"The idea is to adapt it even more to the digital era we are in," Natalie Larivière, president of Transcontinental Media, said in an interview. "This is about staying with our times and evolving with the marketplace."
As Internet audiences grow, newspapers and magazines are increasingly moving their content on-line to capture the advertising dollars that are flowing to the Web.
Stock market tables, television programming schedules and weather forecasts have been at the forefront of that trend as the Web makes printed versions of the same data outdated.
With paper and printing costs taking up more than a third of the budget at some publications, the on-line migration is also a way to cut costs.
"It is yet another significant, end-of-an-era moment," said Kaan Yigit, head of Solutions Research Group, a Toronto company that tracks the evolution of new media.
The Canadian edition of TV Guide was launched in 1976 when Happy Days and Charlie's Angels were the top shows on television.
But in recent years, circulation has fallen sharply. In 2002, TV Guide produced more than 442,000 copies of every issue. Today, that number has dipped below 244,000, a drop of nearly 45 per cent.
The advent of scrollable on-screen program listings has been a major blow to TV Guide and other publications that offer program listings, such as newspapers.
Nearly half of Canadian households have access to such on-screen listings through satellite TV and digital cable. As a result, newspapers and magazines such as TV Guide have been scaling back their listings. "It's surprising it's lasted this long," Mr. Yigit said.
Though TV Guide is tuning out as a magazine, Transcontinental will continue getting revenue from selling program schedules it compiles to the on-screen cable and satellite services that killed TV Guide as a paper product. It also sells to newspapers, magazines and websites.
Ms. Larivière declined to say whether the magazine has been losing money, but said the new TV Guide website (http://www.tvguide.ca) is expected to boost profits for the company's listings business.
Transcontinental is overhauling its on-line operations and wants a minimum of $50-million worth of revenue from the Internet by 2010.
The company acquired the rights to TV Guide in Canada through its 2000 takeover of Telemedia Communications Inc. The magazine was published as an offshoot of the U.S. TV Guide until 1996 when it became a separate publication.
The U.S. version, which is owned by Gemstar-TV Guide, a company controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has also been struggling with declining circulation, although it continues to be sold on newsstands there. It has launched a TV Guide channel in the United States, with celebrity news and gossip and has tried affixing free DVDs to its newsstand copies in a bid to attract customers and stay relevant.
Transcontinental will make the listings free on the website, which will be supported by ad dollars.
"Strategically it's probably a good move," said Chris Kubas of Kubas Consultants in Toronto. "It's got to be tough to produce different editions and mail them out to various regions of the country. This gives them a lot more flexibility. It's certainly the trend of the industry."
