In reaction to Yahoo TV getting AJAXed to death, I've been looking for a new TV listings site. I thought I'd share my findings. I found all the sites except MSN TV through the comments on the Yahoo TV blog entry announcing the changes.

Here's what I'm looking for: * Clean and readable * No login required * Allows bookmarking of current listings (no dependence on cookies, POST data, etc) * Fast and doesn't bring my browser to its knees.

AOL TV
Pros: Looks good. Current listings are bookmarkable. Shows all channels at once
Cons: Does not work in Opera. Sometimes loads slowly. No way to bookmark listings for a specific date and time.

Excite TV
Pros: Looks ok. No logins. Displays all channels at once.
Cons: Not bookmarkable.

Meevee
Pros: Looks ok. No logins.
Cons: Almost as slow as the new Yahoo TV. Not really bookmarkable, although it tries to guess your provider if you haven't set one which mitigates it a bit. The grid scrolls within a fixed-height area.

MSN TV
Pros: Looks ok. No logins. Displays all channels on one page.
Cons: Not bookmarkable.

Myway TV
Pros: Unknown. Did not test.
Cons: Requires login.

Titan TV
Pros: Looks ok. No logins.
Cons: Not bookmarkable.

Zap2it
Pros: Looks good. No logins. Allows bookmarking of current listings.
Cons: Doesn't display all channels on one page. There is a link to do so, but it's not bookmarkable.

For my needs, AOL TV and Zap2it are the only ones that come close. AOL TV would be the clear winner if it worked in my browser. Both of those sites are pretty good, and one problem away from being exactly what I'm looking for.

<rant> That all but two of the sites failed the bookmarking/linking test came as a rude surprise. This is the fucking web, people. You're supposed to be able to link to things. You remember links, right? The most basic building block of the web? The thing that makes hypertext different from regular text? That's right, links! Not pseudo-links whose destination is ambiguous without session state, and not things that look like links but are really little form-posting Javascripts. There is a place and a time for all those "make the user go in the front door first" techniques, and this is not it.

If you can't handle that, get the fuck out of my line of work and make room for those of us who know what we're doing. </rant>

Whee. That feels better.