Couchville Plops into Online TV Listings

Snapstream, which produces the PC-based PVR Beyond TV, has found another use for the TV listing engine it subscribes to — Couchville, a simple and clean online guide to channel listings. Enter your zip code, choose a television provider, and you’re presented with a click-and-drag grid. Double-click on a show block to bring up information about that show and episode. You can mark particular shows as favorites, and you can also check out ‘Buzz‘ rankings for popular shows based on data from Beyond TV users.

It is what it is — a very simple TV listings guide.

It probably won’t inspire the same kind of passion that Yahoo TV’s revision did last December and it’s not as rich in features and content as MeeVee. Meanwhile, TV Guide is working on its own listings site, which Jeff Jarvis has gotten a sneak peek of (screenshot).

Personally, with every cable and satellite provider out there offering a listings engine actually on your TV, I’m not really sure what purpose Couchville serves. If it offered notifications of upcoming favorite shows via email or SMS, or interfaced with online calendars, such as their own Beyond TV service or any of a million other Web 2.0 features besides an AJAXy interface and a ‘Beta’ tag, I think I’d find it a tad more compelling.