TV Guide to Undergo Editorial Face Lift

Among the hundreds of magazines that crowd newsstands and mailboxes each week, TV Guide helps define what big is.

The familiar palm-sized publication has a weekly circulation of 14 million, third in the U.S. behind Modern Maturity’s 21.7 million and Reader’s Digest’s 15.1 million. TV Guide’s advertising and circulation revenues totaled more than $1 billion last year, the only 10-digit haul in the industry.

Perhaps it was no wonder Rupert Murdoch’s News America Publishing Inc., which owns the 42-year-old magazine, tried to turn a changing of TV Guide’s editorial guard into a three-day story last week.

On Day 1, it was announced that the second-in-command, executive editor Barry Golson, 50, will leave to head News America’s magazine development and new media, including TV Guide Online.

On Day 2 came word that editor in chief Anthea Disney, 48, a well-traveled editor who began on London’s Fleet Street and later ran Us, Self and TV’s “A Current Affair,” would immediately become editor in chief worldwide of Murdoch’s expansion-minded Delphi Internet Services Corp.

In addition, a story being saved for Day 3 leaked out on Day 2. Steven Reddicliffe, 41, a former television critic and Entertainment Weekly editor who has been editor in chief of Parenting magazine, will succeed Disney at TV Guide on Aug. 1.

“Anthea did a great job,” Reddicliffe says. “She did stories with an immense amount of credibility, ones that other publications had to follow. Her profiles were on target and her coverage of shows caught them at the right time, whether it was ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Friends.’ ”

He says he first wants to settle in and then build on Disney’s widely acknowledged success in turning TV Guide into a more readable and investigative book.

“I’d like to make sure the profiles are well-reported and have the kind of candid quotes you can’t find anywhere else and to stay ahead of the competition,” he says. “I also want to ensure that the ‘Guide’ part of our name is explored in all ways. . . . People really want to know how to spend their leisure time.”

One of his innovations at Parenting was “Kids Entertainment Extra,” a section produced in collaboration with Entertainment Weekly that sized up media choices for youngsters.

The challenge for Reddicliffe is to continue holding the line against a further decline in circulation. Strong as TV Guide is today, it sold an additional 3 million copies a week 10 years ago. Even though it still wildly exceeds industry norms by selling 75% of the copies laid down on newsstands, its weekly newsstand circulation of 5.1 million reflects a drop of nearly 4.6 million since 1982.

Where have those millions of readers gone? Many have switched to the improved TV listings that come in their daily newspapers and from their cable companies.

“There’s a lot of competition out there, but TV Guide’s listings are extremely reliable,” Reddicliffe says. “In terms of taking away the authority of TV Guide, I don’t think that can be done.”

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Watch Your Mouth!: Never has a vulgarity been taken so seriously.

“The F Word” is a book about, yes, the “F word.” It’s a money-making novelty dressed in scholarly robes by a prestigious American publisher.

To be published in October by Random House Reference at a cost of $12.95, the 224-page oversize paperback will gather the many words through the ages that contain the four-letter one, as well as quotes using you-know-what from such notables as Saul Bellow and Edmund Wilson.

Edited by Jesse Sheidlower, a well-known linguist who also edited the “Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang,” the F book is being designed by Chip Kidd, a leading graphic artist.

How do you promote such a book?

“Carefully,” a representative said.

Afterwords: Mirabella prepares for a relaunch at the end of August under new ownership, Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. Look for this new cover line: “A Sign of Intelligent Life.”