Hi,
It looks like the only comprehensive free source of TV listings in XML
format is
XMLTV
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/work/apps/xmltv/
"XMLTV is a set of utilities to manage your TV viewing. They work with
TV listings stored in the XMLTV format, which is based on XML. The
idea is to separate out the backend (getting the listings) from the
frontend (displaying them for the user), and to implement useful
operations like picking out your favourite programmes as filters that
read and write XML documents.
There are two backends at present, grabbing TV listings for Canada,
the USA, and the UK. We also have a working backend for Germany and/or
Austria, which will be released soon. There are filters to sort the
listings by date, to remove shows that have already been broadcast,
and a couple of programmes to organize your viewing by storing
preferences of what shows you watch. There are a couple of backends to
produce printed output."
If you search SourceForge ( http://www.sourceforge.org ) for "xml tv",
you'll find a few others, but their content is restricted, e.g., GTV
only provides German TV listings:
http://yasd.dhs.org/en/gtv.php3
There's an interesting section on TV listings supply for websites on
the Videodot site ( http://www.videodot.com ); the author states that
"there is no truly free source of television listings data":
http://videdot.com/project-report.html#background+listings-supply
"2.3 Listings Supply
There are various sources of listings data. A common method, known as
'screen scraping', is to simply scrape this information from
publically accessible sources, usually on the Web.
There are also a number of companies distributing listings
commercially. It is these companies, or their clients who typically
run the sites people might scrape the data from. Obviously, as
businesses these people can be understandably upset, and it raises the
possibility of legal problems.
In the interests of collecting well-structured, clean data I
approached the Press Association for samples of their XML feed. They
agreed to supply listings for the final stages of the project, to
allow for user testing and demonstration. This provided a much cleaner
source of listings data, which will remain stable even when people
redesign their websites.
…
At present there is no truly free source of television listings data.
Although there may be a persuasive argument that the individual
channels should want people to know what they are showing and when,
especially as more and more channels come on to the airwaves. There
may also be pressure from pragramme makers for this as a form of
promotion to drive more viewers to their shows. However, it is well
beyond the scope of this project to attempt this sort of political
effort and we will instead focus on what we can best do with what is
available."
If you have a non-commercial project, you may be able to request free
listings from a broadcasting organization, as the author of the above
article did; try one of these:
UK Press Association
www.pa.press.net/
US National Association of Broadcasters
http://www.nab.org
or any of the organizations listed in the Google Directory under:
http://directory.google.com/Top/News/Media/Resources/Organizations/
Free non-XML listings are available from several sites, including:
nexTView EPG
http://nxtvepg.tripod.com/
http://nxtvepg.tripod.com/provnets.html
"In this software package you find a decoder for nexTView - an
Electronic TV Programme Guide for the analog domain (as opposed to the
various digital EPGs that come with most digital broadcasts). It
enables you to receive and browse free TV programme listings for all
of the major networks in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland."
Freesticky.com: Entertainment (lists several sources)
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/section.asp?sectionname=entertainment
Stickysauce.com: Entertainment (lists several sources)
http://www.stickysauce.com/dcd/Entertainment/index-4.html
DigiGuide (British TV listings)
http://www.digiguide.com/general/linking.shtml
PTV Plus (British TV listings)
http://www.ptvplus.com/ptv/licenses.jsp
If you wish to license TV listings content, check out these two
websites:
Central Press
http://www.central-press.co.uk/ (click on "TV listings")
Gist: Partners
http://www.gist.com/us/partners/partners.html#partners
or any site listed at:
EContent Magazine: Syndicated Content
http://www.econtentmag.com/guide2002/guidesyn.html
OSKAR Content Finder: Entertainment
http://www.electroniccontent.com/search.cfm?istype=ispublisher&querytext=tv
PurplePages: Content
http://www.purplepages.ie/site/content/subcat.asp?catid=39
Other usefule links:
TV-Anytime
http://www.tv-anytime.org/
WWWW Consortium: TV interest group (provides a link to the archives of
the www-tv@w3.org list)
http://www.w3.org/TV/tvweb-ig-charter
Useful Google searches:
XML TV listing OR listings OR schedule OR program OR programming
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=XML+TV+listing+OR+listings+OR+schedule+OR+program+OR+programming
syndicated OR license OR licensing OR licensed content TV listings
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=syndicated+OR+license+OR+licensing+OR+licensed+content+TV+listings |
Clarification of Answer by
gale-ga
on
04 May 2002 21:38 PDT
Hi,
Thanks for requesting a clarification! I'm sorry I missed the point of
your question the first time. It looks like you are only interested in
USA listings.
The only source of free, XML-formatted USA TV listings seems to be
XMLTV
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/work/apps/xmltv/
It's a set of Unix utilities that includes a backend for grabbing TV
listings for the USA and other countries from several websites.
A similar utility in an earlier stage of development can be found at
Kwark: Perl
www.casema.net/~jip/ftp/gist
The site includes a section called
"Today's listings in XML" (has some US listings)
http://www.casema.net/~jip/XML/today.xml
You can email the author with any questions about it (Jip
<pip@dds.nl>).
There is a discussion on this topic on one of userland.com's forums:
http://static.userland.com/userLandDiscussArchive/msg004670.html
Online Free TV Listing Database
where one of the participants suggests a solution:
http://static.userland.com/userLandDiscussArchive/msg004676.html
"If you're remotely competent with Perl it should take you an hour or
three to hack HTTP::Parser and LWP::UserAgent to automatically go to
http://www.gist.com/ and return your local listings in whatever format
you want."
The authors of TVNow for Linux and TVlisting appear to have done
exactly that, however, their list of output formats does not include
XML (it includes ASCII Text, HTML, LaTeX, and Xawtv).
TVNow for Linux
http://unihedron.com/projects/tvnow/tvnow.php
(grabs listings from tvnow.com)
TVlisting
http://www.cherrynebula.net/projects/tvguide/tvguide.php
(grabs listings from tvguide.com)
As for paid sources, it looks like only one of them provides content
in XML; it's Gist.com's partners program:
http://www.gist.com/us/partners/partners.jsp
Please contact
Elissa Ogens - Business Development Associate
Tel: 212-965-1999
Email: eogens@gist.com
I have contacted three other popular TV listings sources, TVNow.com,
TVGuide.com, and TVData.com (they operate Zap2it.com), and they don't
have XML.
Good luck with your project! I hope you can make use of XMLTV.
Gale
Please
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