Troy company buys TV Guide magazine
It was purchased from OpenGate Capital in Beverly Hills for an undisclosed price.
TV Guide magazine, which at one time was a must-have publication for television watchers, was sold today to NTVB Media, a Troy company that publishes other TV listings.
"We were approached on this, it seems like yesterday — maybe a couple of months ago — and the more we looked at it, the more we realized it's the perfect fit with our TV weekly magazine and our cable and satellite publications," Andy DeAngelis, NTVB's president and CEO, said during a call from New York where he had announced the deal. "Our strategy is to make TV viewing more enjoyable."
NTVB, which started as a printing company 32 years ago with a press in Troy, purchased the company from OpenGate Capital in Beverly Hills in a cash deal for an undisclosed price.
The acquisition adds TV Guide to NTVB's roster of publications, which includes TV Weekly, that center around TV and creates the largest group of print publications for TV watchers. NTVB has about 1 million subscribers, and acquiring TV Guide adds about 1.8 million more, significantly expanding the audience that the company can sell to advertisers.
The TV Guide magazine — now a 7 by 10 inch booklet — has more than 60 staffers, all outside Michigan and mostly in New York, and does not expect to cut staff.
But DeAngelis said there many be opportunities to add jobs in Troy by printing more special editions.
NTVB employs about 60 people in Michigan, most of whom work in the printing operations that publish weekly TV listings for newspapers, across the country including the Free Press, DeAngelis said, adding that the company now needs to decide whether it will use the TV Guide name on its other publications.
DeAngelis, who grew up in Michigan and got his start in commercial printing, said the company entered the TV listings business in 2008, as newspapers began dropping their television schedules to save money. NTVB struck deals with the newspapers to carry its weekly listing instead, and in exchange newspapers distributed its magazine.
DeAngelis, 59, said he is excited to purchase TV Guide, which he called an iconic magazine.
TV Guide's first national issue appeared on April 3, 1953, with a cover featuring Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV — more commonly known as Desi Arnez Jr. — and the cover line "Lucy's $50,000,000 baby," referring to Lucille Ball, the star of "I Love Lucy."
Over the next three decades, its significance grew, changing hands several times and selling in 1988 for $3 billion.
It is heyday, viewers used the TV Guide to plan what TV shows they'd watch and get their celebrity news.
But, new technology, such as on screen guides, and changing TV viewing habits, like recorded and on demand shows, led to TV Guide's decline.
In 2008, OpenGate Capital bought the magazine for just $1. DeAngelis said NTVB paid much more than $1.
NTVB still touted the publication as the No. 1 television magazine in the U.S., and No. 2 among celebrity-entertainment magazines, and said the magazine is profitable. But DeAngelis said the guide has offered fewer show listings and more reviews and show news.
He said he has asked TV Guide's CEO David Fishman to remain with the company, and plans to keep the company's offices in New York, Los Angeles and Newtown Square, Pa.
“We think about the market the same way and we share the same DNA," Fishman said. "Putting these companies together means we’ll be able to do more to help TV viewers discover what’s worth watching, which has always been TVGM’s core mission.”