tvguide.com acquires tvshowsondvd.com
 

for all you dvdtalkers that use tvshowsondvd.com to get there tvondvd info, news is that tvguide has acquired tvshowsondvd.com the popular website started by Gord Lacey.
not much will change on the website through.

heres the link to the info:

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=6923

Wow. I still remember back on the Home Theater Forum when it was just an idea between a couple of members. Hope they got a big payday for this.

Why? They must have money to blow. Pointless. The sight isn't even that good.

Are you talking about TVGuide or TVShowsOnDVD? The former, I can see your point. The latter, not even close. TVSOD is the best site out there for finding out information about TV shows on DVD. They do a wonderful job over there and I look forward to checking out their site daily.

I hope you are talking about tvguide.com, because that site really does blow. I just hope their style of content doesn't pollute tvshowsondvd.com.

If you are talking about tvshowsondvd.com then you, sir, are....
http://www.digital-digest.com/~blutach/banned.gif

the only thing they could improve are more recent reviews; it's understandable. they still have a great history of them. and no one has better news than they do. great job gord lacey. put me out of my shield s5 misery long before anyone else!

tvshowsondvd > all
tv.com > tvguide.com

I'm a fan (and daily visitor) to TVShowsonDVD.com, too. Even though I'm only a casual TV-on-DVD collector compared to some, it's usually the first site I check each day. Of all the DVD release news sites, I find it is the most dependably informative and up-to-date each and every day, thanks to Gord and Dave. I wish there was a single film-on-DVD site that was as on top of daily release news.

So good for them.

I remember when TVTome.com (tv.com) was bought by cnet and how much of a mess the site turned into. I hope something like that doesn't happen here, but I am concerned, in Gord's message he said "Very little changes right now", which doesn't preclude the site becoming as ugly and ad filled as tvguide.com, after all they own the site now. Aswell in the message he said that there will be integration of content, exactly what content does the site lack now. As for a benefit to this I don't see it for anyone except Gord and Dave.

Yeah the tvtome change was horrid :(

I think this is bad news. DVDFile used to be the first site I checked every morning for DVD news because I thought it was the best DVD site. Then the site got bought by Interactual Software and went downhill and the site is now a shell of its former self.

I wouldn't be shocked if the same thing happens to TSoD. Now that the site has been bought by a major company, Gord and Dave don't have as much freedom or, possibly, editorial control. I don't think it's going to be good for the site.

I visit tvshowsondvd.com daily to check for new release announcements. I pretty much buy only tv-on-dvd now, so I love that site. Hope they don't change it.

First of all, the title of the thread is completely mistake since it was the company TV Guide, not their website tvguide.com, that bought tvshowsondvd.com.

Second, I want to congratulate Gord Lacey and the entire staff of tvshowondvd.com. Your incredible work on the site put on the map to the point that it could be sold on your terms to TV Guide. After so many websites devoted to DVDs have closed because of lack of support, bad management or lack of advertising money, yours has reached a new height.

I like how tvshowsondvd sends mail-outs regarding any shows I've selected.

Hopefully, with the acquisition there will be more pressure on the studios to release TV series DVDs.

I heard TV Guide has discontinued its printed magazines, so it's probably looking for new ways to profit.

Your spelling is not that good. The site is very professional and well managed.

Well, they've sold out to the companies long ago - selling the entire site is just the next logical step.

The site was great when they still reported missing music, cut episodes and so on. These days the site was nothing more than a place to get press releases and (studio-filtered) news about release dates and extras.

I emailed them about cuts to Will & Grace that have yet to be updated. is this the sort of thing they are no longer going to comment on?? I hope not.

Alterations List

Please note: Alteration additions have been suspended on the site due to (lots of) incorrect information being submitted. It's possible that alterations listed below are incorrect, and some edited sets are not listed. We had originally removed the list until it could be cleaned up, but we received emails from our users asking for the list to return, even though some of the information is incorrect. Due to other priorities (like news and release listings), we don't know when the incorrect information will be removed, and new submissions opened.

Doesn't bode well, does it? I wouldn't expect any negative comments to escape from tvshowsondvd from here on out, but I fail to see why an acquisition by TV Guide would cause such a change in policy. I haven't read TV Guide in many years, though -- have they got to the point where they no longer say anything negative about any show? I had assumed the site being bought by TV Guide was better than having it purchased by a major studio, but if this is an example of the changes we can expect, this may not be good news after all.

Well, we always have this forum, and if I was able to, I'd post a link to my "DVD Addict" page on Yahoo 360. The forum keeps showing it as "spam", but it's anything but. Anyone who wants to take a look, drop me a line.

So that's what happened to DVDFile. I used to love them. Went there all the time when I was first getting into DVD. Information was organized nicely; I could get around with ease. Then Peter Bracke left, the site underwent a makeover, and I've barely gone back since. Too bad.

As for TV Shows on DVD, I visit them daily. Among the best resources for information on TV releases. Offhand, I can't think of one better. As long as TV Guide doesn't start calling the shots, this acquisition shouldn't pose any real problems. Let's just hope they don't screw up a good thing.

--THX

I check tvshowsondvd daily. I like their site (although Family Ties came out about 3 years after they first said it would).

As far as TV guide goes, I hate their magazine. It's become very difficult to read the listings and the omit several hours of the day. Tv is on 24/7 people. I don't visit their website.

Hey guys, I'm glad to find people discussing the sale of the site to TV Guide. I have a couple of things to add to the discussion (imagine that!).

I totally agree. I've been extremely busy working on this deal, as well as taking over posting of the news as Dave has been really busy at his day job. I hope things will settle down and I can get back to watching TV, and writing reviews!

TVShowsOnDVD.com lacks a lot of information regarding the TV shows. Right now we have the name of the show, and the year it premiered, but that's all. I've had lots of users ask us to expand this information to list the number of seasons a show ran for, the episodes in each season, and some cast information. TV Guide has that, and I'd love to see some of it integrated into the "Show Info Page" (http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/showinfo.cfm?showID=550). As for the TVTome change....that's CNET that owns them, and I didn't sell the site to CNET.

Actually...it pretty much is the online part (TVGuide.com) that has acquired the site. They're all part of TV Guide, but the online people and the magazine people are pretty much separate, except for a few writers that work on both. We'll be working with the online people.

Disc, that's only for those of us in Canada. TV Guide in Canada is separate from the US company; they just license the name for use in Canada. I think the last Canadian magazine was released a few weeks ago, but the magazine lives on in the US.

Yes, the "Alterations List." I'm not sure why this is being brought up in relation to TV Guide, since I removed that feature from the site awhile ago. I still plan on bringing it back to the site, and it's something I've mentioned to TV Guide as being important to reinstate. It was removed because I couldn't cope with the incorrect information that was in there, and I didn't set up an approval process so I could approve the information before it was displayed on the site. This was really my first shot at user-submitted information, and it didn't work very well. I need to rethink the concept and come up with a better way for the information to be submitted and verified. If you guys have any ideas on how you'd like to see that work, please email me through the form on TVShowsOnDVD.com. I'm sure some of you will doubt this, but I didn't receive a single piece of email from a studio rep about the list.

I used to go to DVDFile as well, back when I first started getting into DVDs. I started to notice that the information there was old, and when I started reporting on TV-DVD releases I'd see information posted there a week or so after it was announced.

Oh Lee...you just HAD to bring that up, didn't you? :P That title is a MAJOR thorn in our sides. Dave and I are both pissed that it took so long for that to come out, but at the time we had a Paramount schedule with it listed, so we reported on it. Of course now we know that the studios move titles around all the time, and it's not a good idea to post news that is that far out. The studios can change their minds, and they often do.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts regarding TV Guide acquiring the site. It's good for people to bring these issues up, and they're all things that I can take to TV Guide and say, "Hey, here are some concerns that people have." You can also email me directly through the form on the site.

So, with that said, what are things you WOULD like to see added to the site?

When it comes down to it, I joined TV Guide because I felt the site would be stronger with them. I feel there will be more opportunities to promote TV-on-DVD, get new users, and ultimately work with the studios to improve the product they're putting out. The site has done some pretty incredible things in the last 5 years, but there's only so much a couple of guys can do.

Gord

My #1 thing, outside of continuance of news related info/release(s) schedule which is already well covered, would be for the alterations list to come back with a vengeance.

To me, it is the only thing really lacking to make the site a comprehensive reference tool. Detailed show info is nice and all but IMDb more than has that covered so it appearing on your site isn't an issue to me. Same with reviews. There are plenty of sites that do reviews so not being able to offer a ton of those isn't an issue for me personally.

Detailed DVD information pertaining to any sort of third party cuts/alterations/etc. is a wide open area that seems like a natural fit for the site. The only way one can currently find this info is to search reviews, fan based sites and such. Your site being a comprehensive resource for this info would fill a gaping need and desire for most of the same clientele that already visits the site.

I always thought it was a great idea to begin with and have been sorry to see it left dormant for so long. I'm sure you could find a couple of volunteers to weed through the submitted data in order to make it as accurate as possible.

It would be my no. 1 site if it wasn't exclusively R1 info. So many tv shows are released en R2 land way before R1 and sometimes not at all in R1.