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A program guide is a listing or collection of information that helps people find programs or other multimedia content. It may be a printed TV schedule, an on-screen list of what is airing, or a more detailed catalog that describes available content.
What does “program guide” mean?
In everyday U.S. usage, a program guide often means a printed weekly magazine listing television or radio programs, or an electronic display of TV schedules. “TV listings” and “electronic program guide” (EPG) are more specific terms for common television versions. The exact meaning depends on where you encounter the phrase.
A technical description takes a broader view: a program guide is metadata about multimedia content. A 2002 Internet-Draft by Yuji Nomura and Henning Schulzrinne described possible information such as a title, URI, airtime, summary, genre, file size, bandwidth requirement, and access restrictions. These are examples, not required fields for every guide. Read the archived Internet-Draft; it expired and is not an IETF standard.
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A basic guide may show program names and times. A more descriptive guide can add details that help someone decide what to watch or whether content is accessible on a particular service or device.
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- Schedule details: program title and airtime.
- Descriptions: a text summary or genre.
- Technical details: file size or bandwidth needs, especially in a multimedia-content context.
- Availability details: a URI or access restrictions.
The technical fields above come from the 2002 draft’s examples; they should not be read as a checklist that every modern TV guide follows.
How do program guides differ?
Guides can differ in both format and organization. These are practical distinctions, not a ranked set of products or a universal classification.
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| Distinction | What it means |
|---|---|
| Printed vs. on-screen | A printed listing is read in a publication; an electronic guide appears on a TV or another interface. |
| Schedule-only vs. descriptive | One guide may focus on titles and times, while another may include summaries or other metadata. |
| Grid vs. channel-by-channel | Listings may be arranged in a schedule grid or presented by channel. A historical USPTO-hosted exhibit also labels grid, channel, and attractions guide formats; these are examples, not a universal taxonomy. |
| Static vs. updateable | A printed listing is fixed once published, while electronic guide data can be updated. The 2002 draft discusses schedule changes, but it does not establish how quickly any current service updates its listings. |
Where will you see a program guide?
You may encounter the term in a TV listing publication, a television or receiver interface, or technical discussions of multimedia catalogs. Electronic interfaces are not all identical: for example, the Panasonic TU-IRD20 manual describes several guide formats and explains how that particular model opens them with its GUIDE button or main menu. Those instructions apply to that model, not to TVs generally. See the TU-IRD20 manual page.
Program guide vs. channel guide
The terms can overlap, but they do not always refer to the same view. A channel guide emphasizes listings organized by channel; a program guide can refer more broadly to a schedule or to metadata describing available programs and multimedia content. The interface’s labels and layout depend on the device or service.
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