Zap2It Labs Discontinuing Free TV Guide Service

QuijiboIsAWord writes "Zap2It Labs, which provides free TV listing data for personal use, has long been the main source of program guide information for users in the US and beyond. They've announced via their webpage that, due to abuse of the service, data will no longer be available after September 1st. There is no other direct source, and no option to pay for the service even if the users wanted to. Without a data feed of this type, users will be reduced to scraping websites at best. Is this going to be a killing blow for MythTV?"

Comments

Google should provide a WebService

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't Google or Yahoo or Microsoft or any of the other big media / tech companies of the 21st century provide this information as a free WebService? Seems like something Google would jump on top of since their mission statement is to organize the worlds information. Well, TV listings is information.... get on that Google!

Re:This is troubling

[elrous0]

Not unless someone volunteers to compile the voluminous amount of information themselves, then set up a distribution method.

This was always MythTV's achilles heel, more than even HDTV. For all the talk about "Unlike Tivo, MythTV can NEVER be shut down or crippled," MythTV always had this dependency on a third party, for profit service. It's possible someone could replace them, but they're going to want SOME form of revenue (and since no one is going to tolerate ads on their MythTV, or pay for the service, this is unlikely).

Rather than a Million Screen Scrapers...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Rather than a million screen scrapers each hitting various listing sites, better one screen scraper sharing the resulting data with a million video rebels. This solution would probably leave everyone happier.

Now there's just the question of who? Who is expert at spidering the web? Who likes to provide new cheap-to-free services in their quest to take over new markets. Who would love to put yet another spike into Microsoft's side by removing yet another possible revenue source for them? Who doesn't have to worry about financing such a small, cheap service alongside their already multitudes of underutilized servers and bandwidth?

Google?

Re:This is troubling

[SEAL]

and since no one is going to tolerate ads on their MythTV, or pay for the service, this is unlikely

Given the choice between:

1. paying Comcast's fees, DVR service, etc
2. paying Tivo or
3. paying for a subscription to an XML TV Listing service, and keeping my MythTV box

I'll take #3.

People will pay for it as long as no free alternatives are out there.

Re:Oh no!

[dgatwood]

For those folks with DirecTV, that's not an option. In fact, at this point, we have no options at all other than writing a guide scraper for TVGuide.com. Fortunately, their website data is fetched in Javascript using xmlHttpRequest, so it is probably straight XML in some dialect that could be converted into the same format as Zap2It uses with very little effort. If done carefully (request the entire schedule exactly once, then only refetch the current day each day and fetch any new days added to the schedule), it might not add enough server hits for them to even care.

Re:No it doesn't

[drakaan]

Sure it does...you just have to buy it from someone who preconfigured it...just like they did to your TiVo.

Re:Myth will survive

[IthnkImParanoid]

You forgot being able to watch a recording on your laptop while on the toilet. I'm puzzled as to why MythTV doesn't advertise this feature a bit more, since it's one of my favorites.

That being said, you can't honestly suggest that MythTV is always a better choice than Tivo, unless you've conveniently forgotten about the teeming masses of people who couldn't install a capture card if their life depended on it. Ease is the killer feature for Tivo and bundled PVRs.

Re:This is troubling

[vux984]

They rely on advertising to make money and aren't going to freely help people with a device that most people are going to use to skip advertising.

They seem to forget that a substantial chunk of those viewers wouldn't be watching at ALL, if it weren't for DVRs. I like a show that's on when I'm usually playing with my kids. If I didn't have a DVR, I wouldn't watch that show period. Yes, I skip through many of the commericials during playback, but not all of them, and not if the commercial catches my eye, or is for a product I'm interested in. I even rewind to watch a commercial from the start (like if I skip into the middle of a Mac/PC ad I haven't already seen) etc.

Before I had a DVR I hit mute and/or pipped the commercials while I browsed the channel guide, or checked on the hockey game, or something. Its not like I was sitting there 'attentively watching' all the ads before.

I expect advertisers are probably losing eyeballs overall as people adopt DVRs, but its probably not nearly the issue they think it is.

Re:Myth will survive

[SydShamino]

Unlike printed guides, which have to limit show descriptions to one or two lines at best, digital guides can be as detailed as you wish. By providing your own RSS feed of your schedule, you could increase the information given, which should increase the number of people willing to watch your channel. Even though I have a DVR I still watch (interesting) commercials, so don't completely write off my viewership.

And here's how you can directly make money:
By providing your own guide information, you can insert sponsorship lines and charge for them.

"Tonight on Lost, sponsored by Coca-Cola, Jack and Kate have more awkward sexual tension, while Hurley tries to cheer everyone up, Sawyer acts rudely, and Sayid kills someone with his feet."

Even us DVR users will very often look at the guide information. Voila, you've just sold an ad!

Thanks

[ImaLamer]

Thank you for being the first to thank them.

It sucks that it' shutting down (I use it for GB-PVR)- but they did do it for free for years. Let's not demonize them, no matter the reason, and start looking for alternatives.