'Pushing Daisies' was honored with an award from the Casting Society of America, winning an Artios Awards, the Hollywood Reporter says || James Cromwell, who played Zefram Cochrane in 1996's 'Star Trek: First Contact,' broke his collarbone in a fall off his bicycle last weekend, Yahoo! News reports. He's expected to fully recover. || ABC's 'Lost' will return to Wednesday nights starting Jan. 21. A clip show will run at 8 followed by a two-hour premiere. || All of the Star Trek movies could be coming to Blu-Ray as early as next year, Digital Bits says. Paramount had supported HD-DVD, but has conceded defeat to Blu-Ray, and is now moving to the format || SciFi Channel's 'Warehouse 13' has completed its creative staff with the likes of Jack Kenny, David Simkins, Drew Greenberg, Stephen Scaia, and others || 'Pushing Daisies' was honored with an award from the Casting Society of America, winning an Artios Awards, the Hollywood Reporter says || James Cromwell, who played Zefram Cochrane in 1996's 'Star Trek: First Contact,' broke his collarbone in a fall off his bicycle last weekend, Yahoo! News reports. He's expected to fully recover. || ABC's 'Lost' will return to Wednesday nights starting Jan. 21. A clip show will run at 8 followed by a two-hour premiere. || All of the Star Trek movies could be coming to Blu-Ray as early as next year, Digital Bits says. Paramount had supported HD-DVD, but has conceded defeat to Blu-Ray, and is now moving to the format || SciFi Channel's 'Warehouse 13' has completed its creative staff with the likes of Jack Kenny, David Simkins, Drew Greenberg, Stephen Scaia, and others ||

ABC Gets Control Of TV Guide ... For One Issue

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By MICHAEL HINMAN
Aug-19-2008

An act of desperation? Journalistic ethics thrown out the window?

It's hard to tell what might have been going through the minds of TV Guide publishers as they decided for the first time in the magazine's 55-year history to allow one network to sponsor the entire magazine.

ABC will have complete advertising control of the magazine for its Aug. 21 weekly issue that includes the purchase of 21 ad pages promoting its fall lineup, and even a cover shot of one of its stars.

This is good news for a number of ABC shows that will be looking for a little extra promotion in a busy season for the science-fiction genre at least like "Pushing Daisies," "Life on Mars" and "Lost," but readers of TV Guide must be scratching their heads wondering if a publication meant to give objective views of television (well, at least objective as far as entertainment reporting goes) should have such a buyout from a network that is covered by the magazine.

While it might be new to TV Guide, providing full sponsorship to a single advertiser isn't exactly new to magazines, according to trade publication Folio. It pointed out that The New Yorker allowed the Target store chain to take over all of its advertising slots in an August 2005 issue.

Networks like ABC are competing with a much more vast entertainment world than it has in the past, so taking on stunt marketing tactics like this are starting to take shape, but it is curious to whether or not TV Guide would have allowed itself to be bought up this way if it wasn't struggling financially on its own.

The magazine reported a single-copy sales drop of 29 percent in the first half of 2008, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, but subscription circulation is up 2.4 percent.

TV Guide also is about to be a part of new ownership with its merger with Macrovision said to be worth $2.8 billion, that was promptly followed by job cuts.

The cover of this week's TV Guide at least hints the magazine won't be totally about ABC. Teased on the cover are The CW's "90210" reboot, "Heroes" on NBC, "CSI" on CBS and Fox's "Fringe."

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