TV Guide shuffles top editor posts

TV Guide promoted two executives to top editorial roles today, days after the previous leadership departed amid the acquisition of the magazine's parent company.

Debra Birnbaum was named editor-in-chief, replacing Ian Birch, who was among those who departed last week in a round of layoffs. Birnbaum had overseen the magazine's efforts to combine content from across media platforms.

Craig Tomashoff, who was West Coast bureau chief for the magazine, was named executive editor.

TV Guide, which was founded in Philadelphia by the now-deceased Walter Annenberg, still employs 1,600 people in Radnor, including 300 at its publishing group and interactive-program-guide group.

Macrovision Corp., a video technology provider, closed its acquisition of the magazine's parent company, Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., last week, and changed the name of the combined company to Macrovision Solutions Corp.

Macrovision has said it intends to sell TV Guide magazine and its TV Guide-branded cable channel but hold on to the popular TV Guide Web site and Gemstar's technologies that drive electronic TV programming guides.

The TV Guide print magazine has struggled in recent years as more people use on-screen TV guides. The magazine went through an overhaul in mid-2005, shedding two-thirds of its guaranteed circulation and repositioning itself as a glossy entertainment magazine.

Its newsstand sales have continued to suffer, however, falling from 287,842 in 2006 to 225,820 last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.