The lost pleasure of reading The Radio Times

In 1991 after a decree by then Home Sectary Douglas Hurd (this was when the post oversaw all broadcasting before the creation of the Culture Sectary post) all TV/Radio listings magainzes printed the schedules for their rivals, this meant gone were the days of having to buy The Radio Times for BBC listings and TV Times for ITV ones. After reading a rather garish effort by TV Times my familly decided to stick with The Radio Times. Each Tuesday I would go through the new edition picking out my viewing and listening for the forthcoming week. These days I do a brief look through the week's new Radio Times and how has this happened?  I guess the answer lies in the words stripped and standard, Back when Channel 5 started in 1997, those words were used to describe the channels schedule meaning you would get the same type of programme at the same time of day. And in a way the other channels have adopted this method. ITV screen Emmerdale at 7PM from Monday to Friday and in response BBC1 show the One Show in exactly the same pattern, Channel 4 have been showing The Simpsons and Hollyoaks  as the same block for the last 12 years and meanwhile on BBC2 perhaps the most tedious and boring quiz show in the history of UK TV Eggheads has taken root about 6PM though every now and again it gets moved half a hours to try out a show like Two Tribes with Richard Osman but it gets move back to it's usual slot pretty quickly and that is the tip of the iceberg. Given how TV schedules are almost predictable is it any wonder that all TV listing magazines have suffered sliding sales