TV Guide: History Of The Most Popular Magazine Of The '60s & '70s

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TV Guide covers featuring Mary Tyler Moore, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Smothers Brothers, Lucille Ball, and Dinah Shore. Source: Flickr

TV Guide was the most popular magazine in America at the height of the Groovy Era. In today's world where everything is on-demand and available at your fingertips the concept of requiring a magazine to tell you what time a television program is going to air is bizarre. That wasn't the case in the '60s and '70s. In mid-century America, TV Guide was considered an essential part of the household. It helped families plan their evenings and people something to look at when boredom took hold.

By the early '70s, TV Guide was the biggest magazine in the country with a peak circulation of 19 million. In its heyday the Guide did its best to keep up with television trends, changing styles, and the spread of cable television. There's never going to be another phenomenon quite TV Guide.