Excellent value at 40p (TV Choice)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	TV Choice
Date:	05/07/01 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plenty of information, Cheap, Interesting

Disadvantages: Sometimes spoils the soap stories

At one time I always used to buy both the Radio Times and the TV Times every week without fail. The Radio Times gave me information on the BBC radio and television programmes and the TV Times did the same for ITV and Channel 4.

A few years ago a change meant that both of these publications were allowed to show details of one another’s programmes, so I began to buy just the TV Times, which was more expensive than it had been before but still cheaper than buying both magazines.

Then the weekend newspapers began publishing their own free magazines giving all the week’s viewing and other weekly magazines began to hit the newsagent’s shelves. I tried out one or two of these new publications, as they all seemed to be generally cheaper than the TV Times.

I finally settled on TV Choice, as I don’t buy a newspaper anyway so don’t get the freebie. TV Choice is about the cheapest at 40p per week and is excellent value.

This magazine begins with ten pages of articles giving information about the weeks programmes. There’s a double page spread outlining the previous week’s soap stories together with a preview of the current week. There’s also a children’s page called Kids’ Zone.

There is then a comprehensive film guide, which gives details of all films on terrestrial channels together with the best of the films on satellite TV and also the best cinema release of the week. All of these films have a review of about 75 words and give details of the classification given by the Board of Censors.

The main body of the magazine has details of all TV and radio programmes for terrestrial, digital and satellite for the week beginning Saturday and ending the following Friday. Each day the five terrestrial channels appear side by side across a double page spread making it easy to see at a glance what is on and whether any of the programme that you intend to watch clash with one an
other.

Most of these programmes have a short write up explaining what the programme is about and they all have the details of the videoplus numbers so that you can pre programme your video.

The following four pages in respect of each day show all the programmes on satellite TV split into columns for each of the channels, Nickelodeon, UK Gold, Sky Sports etc. As space is limited not all programmes have write-ups.

The radio programmes are also listed here for BBC Radio stations 1 to 4 and 5 live together with Classic FM and Talksport.

There is information about the digital channels, BBC Choice, ITV2, etc., again with minimal information due to lack of space.

After the final day’s programme information there is a page of competitions one just for fun, one to win £500 and another to win a prize such as a camera or video recorder.

The final page is a letters page on which the top letter receives a cheque for £10. This page also has details of the week’s horoscopes.

I don’t have satellite or digital TV so I can’t really comment on the usefulness or otherwise of that part of the magazine, but the information for the programmes on the terrestrial channels is excellent. And at 40p this is what I call a bargain.

The only slight criticism is the fact that they put pictures and large headlines on the front page often spoiling coming soap storylines for those who don’t want to know. As it happens I can’t resist reading the page where it tells me what is going to happen anyway! Then I’m cross because I know what is going to happen and it spoils the surprise! Sad eh?

Summary: