Zap2it vs. TV Guide online TV listings

For as long as I can remember, I've been using zap2it.com as my primary TV guide.  They could be customized to my TV provider so they'll tell me what's on the channels I actually get and they tell me the actual channel number (unlike the TV listings in the newspaper, where they say it's on channel 5 in the listings and then I have to look it up in the chart to see that channel 5 is really channel 6 on my TV).

However, Zap2it's advanced search function recently stopped working, which makes it significantly less useful to me.  For example, as you may have noticed, I'm an Eddie Izzard fan, so I like to know when Eddie's going to be on TV.  So I'd use Zap2it's advanced search function to search for "Izzard" under "Cast & Crew", and I'd get a list of every program Eddie's in for the next two weeks.  In the absence of this function, I'd have to either look up every single entry on Eddie's IMDB page separately (which is a wee bit inconvenient) or miss opportunities to see Eddie on TV (which cramps my style).

Fortunately, it turns out TVGuide.com's listings aren't powered by Zap2it (as many TV listings are), and they have celebrity-specific listings (like this) that fulfill the function for which I'd previously been using Zap2it's advanced search (and with a much nicer interface too - TV Guide lists every appearance in chronological order, whereas Zap2it would only list the titles of the shows the performer appears in, and I'd have to click on each one to see when it's on.)  However, I've noticed a variety of pros and cons of each system:

- TV Guide lets you add movies, or even celebrities (which basically means anyone with an IMDB entry - Jane Austen is in there), to your watchlist, whereas Zap2it only lets you add TV shows.  This means that, on Zap2it, if I want to watch The King's Speech, I need to search for it every couple of weeks to see when it's on, while on TV Guide I can just add it to my list and they'll let me know.

- TV Guide's celebrity pages also show you episodes of TV shows that have that celebrity in it, whereas Zap2it's show you every episode of any TV show that has that celebrity in it.  For example, Wil Wheaton has been in a few episodes of Big Bang Theory.  If I look him up on TV Guide, it will show only the episodes of Big Bang Theory in which he appears.  However, if I look him up on Zap2it, it will show Big Bang Theory as a whole, even if the episodes he appears in aren't airing any time soon.

- Unfortunately, TV Guide's watchlist is set up so that it only shows you the next instance of each list item, which is problematic when the item added is a celebrity, who may appear in multiple movies or TV shows. So if Eddie's in one show tomorrow morning and another tomorrow afternoon, the watchlist will only show me the one he's in tomorrow morning (unless I click through to his individual page).  But it will still show me the next airing of King's Speech even if it's a week from now.  In comparison, Zap2it's "My Calendar" function is set up like a calendar, and tells me which things are on each day. (Unfortunately, it's only limited to TV shows, not movies or celebrities or other search results.)

- TV Guide allows you to add as many channels as you want to your "favourites", so you can have a grid that consists of all the channels you get.  Zap2it limits you to 100 (which is frustrating when you get more than 100 channels but nowhere near all the channels).  Note to Zap2it: it's not about wanting to watch my "favourite" channels, it's about what's on the channels I get in my cable package. If I just wanted to watch my favourite channel, I'd turn the TV on to that channel.

- However, TV Guide's watchlist shows you what's on all the English-language channels offered by your cable provider, even if you've meticulously set up your favourite channels list.

- The problem is the "English-language" part - TV Guide doesn't show non-English channels (even if they're part of a basic cable package) in those celebrity-specific page.  If Eddie is on a French channel, I'll never know unless I try to deliberately search for the French title of everything he's ever been in.  Note to TV Guide: some people who speak English do speak non-English languages too!

- Another advantage of TV Guide's watchlist is there's a checkbox that says "New Airings Only", so you can only see episodes that aren't reruns.  This is useful if you're interested in  new episodes of the Simpsons, for example, but don't want to be informed of every single rerun.

- A disadvantage of TV Guide in general is it doesn't show the end times of programs in search results - you have to look them up in the grid.  This is particularly annoying for movies.  It will tell you that the runtime of a particular movie is 120 minutes and it will tell you that the movie is on a 9:00, but it won't tell you whether it's on from 9:00-11:00 or 9:00-12:00.  As we all know, such things do vary because of editing for television and commercial breaks.

- I think both systems could use a more robust category function.  Zap2it used to have a particularly good one, where one of the categories was Fitness.  So I used this to find exercise programs on TV (my preferred method of exercising).  But they later eliminated the category.  (When I switched to Rogers I started using my on-screen guide for this, but lately it's less useful because they're putting entirely too many things in the Fitness category, like reality shows about people giving birth and programs about alternative medicine, so I have to click on every unfamiliar title to see if it is in fact a fitness show.)

Currently I'm using Zap2it's calendar and basic search results primarily but TV Guide's more advanced search results and celebrity pages.  I'd probably switch back to using Zap2it exclusively if they reinstated the advanced search function and let us add movies, celebrities, and search results (i.e. anything with Star Trek in the title rather than having to add each Star Trek separately) to the calendar.  I'd probably switch to TV Guide exclusively if the watchlist was truly chronological, if they included non-English channels in search results, and if they included program end times in search results.

I'm glad that the two systems complement each other and mostly fill in each other's gaps, but it would be awesome if one of the sites (or both, or a third, completely new site) could add the features it's missing so it meets all the needs I've listed here.