TV Guide
TV Guide is a bi-weekly American magazine that provides television program listings information as well as television-related news, celebrity interviews and gossip, film reviews, crossword puzzles, and, in some issues, horoscopes. The print magazine is owned by NTVB Media, while its digital properties are controlled by the CBS Interactive division of CBS Corporation; the "TV Guide" name and associated editorial content from the publication are licensed by CBS Interactive for use on the website and mobile app through an agreement with the magazine's parent subsidiary TVGM Holdings, Inc.
TV Guide
The outlined bullets that were originally used only for out-of-market television stations were also assigned to cable-originated channels when those began to be incorporated into the listings section in 1981, indicating those services by a three-letter abbreviation in a condensed typeface: for example, "ESN" represented ESPN, "DSC" represented The Discovery Channel and "NIK" represented Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite. (E! and FX later became exceptions, as those channels were identified by two-character abbreviations.) In certain cases, the abbreviation used (such as "AMC" for American Movie Classics, "TNT" for "Turner Network Television" and "MTV" for "Music Television") was that which the channel had already branded by (The Nashville Network [now the Paramount Network] is a noted exception, as it was originally assigned the abbreviation "NSH," rather than its network-assigned initialism "TNN"). Following that group's launch in September 1998, in editions in which one or more smaller markets served by said edition had local affiliates of the primarily cable-only service, affiliates of The WB 100+ Station Group were also identified in the same manner as conventional cable channels (under the abbreviation "WB") for brevity. Some PBS state or regional member networks were listed similarly in certain editions (such as Mississippi ETV [now Mississippi Public Broadcasting], which was listed in the Memphis edition under the code "E"). Two pay cable networks, Cinemax and Showtime eventually rebranded in 1997 so that their respective "TV Guide" abbreviations – "MAX" and "SHO" – became the focal point of their logos. Some of the channels that were added to the prime time grids beginning with the September 12–18, 1998, issue were identified by four character abbreviations (such as "BBCA" for BBC America and "HBOS" for HBO Signature). In cable-specific editions, a bullet indicating a broadcast or cable channel's local cable assignment (except where a broadcast station's cable channel assignment is the same as its over-the-air channel or where smaller cable systems are listed) appeared alongside the specific station or network indicator.