epguides
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| Web address | http://epguides.com/ |
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| Commercial? | Yes |
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Type of site
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Entertainment |
| Registration | None |
| Owner | George Fergus |
| Created by | George Fergus, Dennis Kytasaari & John Lavalie |
| Launched | July 11, 1999 |
| Current status | Active |
epguides is a website dedicated to English language radio and television shows. When established in 1995 as "The Episode Guides Page," it offered fan-compiled episode guides for hundreds of US and UK series,[1] gaining particular attention for its comprehensive presentation of episode titles and airdates lists for all recent primetime shows on broadcast television in the United States. In 1999, it was recommended by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in the seventh edition of their book.[2] Soon after, the site's name was changed to epguides and it was moved to a separate domain name. It is under the epguides name that the website was again recommended in the eighth edition published in 2003.[3]
Epguides has subsequently developed information-exchange partnerships with other fan-created episode guide websites such as TV Tome, and its successor TV.com.
Show Pages
Each epguides television show page consists of basic information about the show, starting with a picture of the cast and a list of the main actors with links to IMDb. It also displays the number of episodes and episode length. At the top and bottom there is an information bar consisting of links for further information on the show. In between is a list of the titles of the episodes in order with air dates
Relationship with other sites
Epguides' relationship original with TV Tome was established in June 2000. The creators of both sites decided to collaborate and started a relationship between the sites where all the information on epguides was transferred over to TV Tome and whenever information was updated on one site, it would automatically be updated on the other site. Subsequently, TV Tome merged into TV.com. In 2005, TV.com changed the format of its episode guides, which had previously been based on epguides' format, so epguides ended their relationship with TV.com.
From 1999 on, epguides was recommended as the principal episode guide website in the FAQ of the primary Usenet newsgroup devoted to television, rec.arts.tv.
Radio guides
Because of the dearth of Internet coverage for UK radio shows as compared to their US counterparts, radio shows were added to the epguides database in 2005, and there are now over 800 UK radio series episode lists on the site.
