Dueling dialogs: With Tribune's TWI, shown top as it could be used by the Chicago Tribune, best bets include text and photos over several pages. The listings grid on TV Data OnLine, bottom, includes buttons to get quickly to different days and time blocks, while an ad stays visible at the bottom of the screen.

Changing channels: The search screen for TV Data OnLine, top, returns a list of programs for the week that meet the search criteria, with a text window showing program details. TWI subscribers can mark programs they want to be reminded to view or tape, bottom. Listings can be displayed to show marked shows, with program details.

How to solve the 500-channel problem: interactive TV logs

ATLANTA -- Remember that 500-channel cable TV choo-choo rumbling down the tracks straight at your weekly TV book?

It just got shunted to a siding.

Newspapers soon will have two ways to escape the 500-channel television listings nightmare: TVDO or TWI.

Scheduled to be introduced shortly by the two leading suppliers in the TV listings business, TV Data Technologies and Tribune Media Services, TVDO and TWI are the first interactive TV listings programs offered to newspapers as a supplement -- or successor -- to printed listings.

With either product, consumers can download the latest listings data and then customize their own way of looking ahead to see what's on television.

TVDO and TWI achieve the same purpose in somewhat different ways, once again demonstrating that there's more than one way to fill a screen. Each comes in response to newspapers' perceived need to get on-line, and definite need to provide comprehensive TV listings at a time cable systems are expanding their offerings beyond what is manageable in a weekly TV book.

TV Data OnLine (TVDO) and Tribune's TV Week Interactive (TWI) accomplish both tasks quite nicely -- for readers who have PCs and newspapers that have the vision to snap up one of the few on-line products virtually every household could find a use for.

With either, the 500-channel freight train we've been told is coming can arrive with something less than a bang (just, perhaps, a lengthy download). And for newspapers, TVDO and TWI offer a way to make money the new-fashioned way -- on-line -- while giving readers what they want.

As Tom Beatty, sales manager for Tribune Media Services, said, "All of a sudden the reader is creating his own TV book, and the editor is no longer getting calls."

There's no magic to either TVDO or TWI -- just a database, search engine and numerous PC display screens.

The similarities end there.

TV Data, of Queensbury, N.Y., has spent the last year creating TV Data OnLine. Tribune Media Services of Chicago bought TV Week Interactive, and in fact has become the marketer and data supplier for the software's owner, LookAhead Communications of New York, which retains responsibility for supporting TWI.

After incorporating each week's listings in its software, LookAhead will distribute listings to franchise holders, and answer queries from end users -- leaving Tribune out of the dirty end of the playing field.

One consequence of being an established product is that TWI is more robust than TVDO, offering more features and content. TV Week Interactive provides photos (20 per week), and its search functions allow a user to produce a tightly defined set of listings, which then can be printed.

But TVDO has the leg up on currency: TV Data provides daily updates of the database, and each time a user logs on, listings for the next seven days are sent automatically, providing updates for days already in hand.

TWI subscribers will be given weekly-only updates, which will be available each Saturday for the seven days starting Sunday. The update will include listings for the following two weeks -- twice what TVDO provides.

Bear in mind, of course, that the franchise-holder, be it a newspaper or other company, must maintain the bulletin board or Web page location with those updates -- a task that likely can be automated but still must be monitored.

Using either of these Windows-based programs is simple, after loading the software and setting it up for the local cable system. Both products allow users to select and list channels in any order they choose, and change that sequence at will.

Both provide local cable system channel numbers in their displays, but the user must select the cable system to be used and select (or reject) channels to be displayed in listings. TVDO will support as many as eight cable systems in one download.

Once up and running, TWI users have more choices to make than TVDO subscribers. They can look at two weeks' worth of programs, have more best bets to scan and, of course, can ogle pix -- some in color.

The newspaper can customize the first TWI splash screen with its logo, or even reproduce the cover of that week's print TV book. To the right of the color image are buttons for best bets, features, listings, and next week and previous week (a toggle for the two weeks in the database).

A click on best bets opens the first of 14 day-specific screens with four photos and a text box with program choices for each day. A click on each photo opens a text box describing the program and listing air times.

Similarly, pressing the TV features button opens a screen with several boxes in it, all devoted to one program. One box contains a photo, another a synopsis of the show, a third a review by someone on TMS' entertainment staff (text that could be subbed with local copy) and a fourth with a feature article about someone in the cast.

The heart of the program, of course, is in the listings. A window displays a grid, with times across the top and channels down the left edge. The grid can be scrolled vertically, to see all programs at a given time, or horizontally, to show all programs for a set of channels.

TWI is fully customizable in this regard, with the user free to include any channels in any order. Thus, someone who watches only a dozen channels out of maybe 80 on the cable system need not scroll through everything to find his or her preferences.

Each program block in the listings grid can be clicked on to open a text box with specifics about the program -- day, date, time, channel, duration, type (movie, sports, special) and category (drama, comedy, variety) of program, and synopsis.

Both TWI and TVDO have heavy-duty search functions, although again TWI has a slight edge. With TWI, commonly used searches can be saved for one-key execution -- and they can bring up a wealth of information.

A user may search general programming by the expected items -- channel, date, time, category of program and description -- but also by episode name (perfect for Star Trek junkies still trying to complete their video library). Movies can be sought by a combination of fields -- quality stars, performer, director, a span of years and Mpaa rating.

So, if you want to know when all the John Wayne flicks that John Huston directed will be on, just ask! And for each film, the synopsis lists all air times for the two weeks.

Viewers devoted to one channel can see all programs on that channel -- much easier than skimming through a printed rolling log, searching for that one channel. Similarly, programs can be listed alphabetically, again simplifying a search for that elusive, desired show.

Another plus for TWI is in its print function. While a TVDO user may print programs by channel and/or time segment, the list of programs returned by a TWI search can be printed, making it possible for each and every viewer in the family to assemble his or her customized list of programs.

TVDO is not a distant second in this contest, however. While it has a way to go to catch up to TWI in terms of its feature set, the foundation is there -- and TV Data has a long track record of meeting the competition head-on. Where TV Data may have to hump to catch up is in features content (Tribune's selection of stories, best bets and highlights is far larger) and in generating a rolling log.

Aside from some marketing advantages over TWI (see box), TV Data OnLine offers the same fundamentals as TV Week Interactive -- with less flash.

The primary screen on TVDO features a listing grid, with ad space across the bottom of the screen. A series of buttons allows quick access to blocks of time segments and days of the week.

At the right edge of the screen are five tabs, which can be clicked on to open windows into listings, movies, sports, "others" and "fun stuff" (features copy).

The user may specify the number of display lines in the grid, but the fonts used and color scheme are determined by the franchise holder. A click on a program block in a grid opens a text box with details about the program, including air times for the week.

Taking those air times and programming a VCR for them will be as easy as with print listings. Both TV Data and Tribune are able to include Gemstar's VCR Plus+ numbers in their databases, and will supply them to on-line franchises that have licensing agreements with Gemstar.

How will TVDO and TWI play in Hometown, USA?

First, someone at the Hometown News has to take the risk that on-line listings have a future and offer one flavor or the other to its community.

The paper's motivation may be in just making sure no one else in town holds the franchise, but it may also be thinking that down the road, on-line listings could supplant the weekly TV book (subscribers could go on-line free in return for eschewing a printed book) -- or make it possible at least to slim down the print product as the scales tip toward on-line listings as the reference of choice.

Certainly TVDO and TWI are attractive alternatives to publishing zoned TV books, or trying to keep up on paper with the welter of channels offered on cable. But they, like Web home pages, audiotext and other on-line widgets, will require time to gain a foothold with readers.

And they face competition from another "on-line" listing service -- the cable system's program guide. Some systems now offer highly sophisticated, interactive listings, from which a viewer may zip to a channel with a simple click of a remote control -- or with a couple of finger flicks, set up the VCR to tape.

That kind of interactivity is not even on the horizon at either TV Data or TMS.

-- Pete Wetmore

Tribune Media Services,
(312) 222-4444;
TV Data Technologies,
(800) 338-8838.

From THE COLE PAPERS, August 1995, Copyright © 1995, All Rights Reserved.