please empty your brain below

The listings have always been the most important bit, with the articles being something to read in the meantime. It sounds to me as if the print version is now redundant.

I used to say Time Out was very good, but suffered from not being free the way these sorts of things are in other cities. Now they've gone free and made the content inferior. It's not as good as Toronto's NOW, let alone the Village Voice that it once aspired to be.
Shortlist and Stylist are both utter guff and always have been. I hope public perception of Time Out doesn't get affected by association, though from picking up the first freebie and, having had a good half-an-hour read of it, it's still miles ahead of those two rags.
"...but each has fewer than five pages..."

You slipped up today in your quest to annoy the few lesser mortals who still care about these things ;)

Long may it last!
The new timeout is awful. Just another crappy free-sheet. You cant plan anything using it. I would prefer to pay £3 and get a proper listings magazine that covers everything, including TV and Radio.

I suppose Timeout expect everyone to walk around with £300 tablets or smartphones and use their app, along with a 3G data contract.

Just another example of a "race to the bottom" that ends up with something crap.
"...but each has fewer than five pages..."

You slipped up today in your quest to annoy the few lesser mortals who still care about these things ;)

Long may it last!


Sorry Blue Witch but I interprete this differently. Since each could have had four and a half pages or three and a quarter the word "page" is not a countable noun in this content. It is simply a unit of measurement that can be arbitarily subdivided. Therefore, knowing that the correct word in this context was "less" DG deliberately wrote "fewer" to annoy the pedants.
yesterday I didn't go out till mid-morning, looked out for a copy but none to be seen anywhere (I was in various parts of east, central and west London)but it sounds as if I didn't miss anything. I used to use it mainly for the film listings.
As always a very well written blog post and as always with the in depth details.
I would love to get my hands on a copy, but seeing as i live and work in Z3, i may as well howl at the moon. or use my android app
I agree with the lack of depth being a killer now it's free, though perhaps the brand will be enough to keep it going for a while.

For me though, the tragedy of Timeout is its inability / lack of interest in building any sort of online community.

Each of their sections has a strong enough editorial voice to be a great blog in its own right, but they failed to capitalise on that and there's no feeling of interaction with them either online or in print (the decision to reduce the letters page in the printed version was a real mistake).

Perhaps the move to a freesheet, which requires greater traffic to the website, but I doubt they have the cash to make the kind of investment that it would require. Which is a shame.
PofP - I did consider that option, but decided that, as he'd said, "I've counted up all the content, occasionally approximately..." a page was a quantified (albeit in DG terms) unit.

But, I wouldn't be surprised if you are correct, eh DG? ;)
Trouble is, London has lots of daily local papers... The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph...

I miss City Limits.
So London now doesn't have a fully comprehensive listings magazine. This may be OK in the age of the web, but what are the web equivalents? I wonder if some of the smaller venues will suffer?
since my earlier comment, I've found that Time Out is still available in the Bishopsgate reference library, where I usually read it. I agree with dg about the content, or lack of, but it does still have film reviews and may of course change in reaction to criticism, eg this blog
A point that's perhaps been overlooked is that once Time Out was far more than a comprehensive listings magazine. It was a product of '60s counterculture, wearing its alternative credentials and leftist ideology with pride. Editorial content defined it at least as much as its listings. Although it remained fairly political during the Thatcher/Reagan era, its radicalism started to quickly fade. Basically, it had its day and lost its sense of purpose *decades* ago. Even as a freebie, I wonder how long it can struggle on for. Like many of its staff, it's pretty much redundant.
Re pedants' corner: I wonder if PofP's reasoning could also be applied to "it's taken rather fewer words to fill the 80 pages" in para 3.
The iPhone app is very good. It has a few nifty features that involve GPS and maps... 'find (whatever) nearby' works well, if you're just out and want to find something a bit interesting at the last minute.

I also particularly like the "find my iPod gigs" feature, which scans the music you own and cross-references it with gig listings, then plots them on a map or in date order.
I too am old enough to remember City Limits - and preferred it to TO as a print edition. Have long ago replaced TO with other strategies to find interesting things to do. I shall forget TO very quickly - especially as I am now unlikely to come across a copy.
I like getting the new issue for free in the morning, especially on the way to work as it's easy on the eyes but you're right that you can't plan anything. At least it's not 79 pages of adverts and 1 page of content like shortlist or the other freemium mags but I fear it may turn that way as the weeks pass.










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