Alright. Can you clear something up for me? You said:

Unfortunately, Zap2It is discontinuing this free program guide service....This service is invaluable to thousands of users using PVR's like MythTV.

But you also said:

Users would be charged a monthly fee to use this service.

Why would users pay for your service instead of paying for Zap2it? I am not very familiar with your idea's subject matter, so if you could explain this, I would greatly appreciate it.

very few people are willing to pay a monthly fee.
Tommy

Thanks for the feedback, Fitzpatrick. Zap2It has no intention of providing this service as a fee-based service. The provided free, as a service to the personal community. However, commercial vendors were abusing it. Hence, there are no other options available at this time.

Hi Vanhees.

From the comments left on Slashdot, Digg and in the Zap2It forums, there are quite a number of people that would pay a monthly fee for this. It's an invaluable service that we can't get anywhere else, now that Zap2It is discontinuing.

I use MythTV, but don't think I'd pay a monthly fee. I'd rather see a free, ad-supported service. Hrrm, I wonder if this is possible?

Well succes anyways!
Tommy

Yeah, this is a great idea. Create a TV listing service and make it available for free. Once you get a number of subscribers hooked on using the service, start charging a fee. You'll make bank. Oh, wait. That's what zap2it did. And your proposal is what? Offer the same service, also for a fee, without first establishing the subscriber base in direct competition against the company that was smart enough to do it the right way to begin with? Oh, and with a much smaller budget to back you.

Steveszat I believe that TravellingGuy's point is that Zap2it is shutting down their service altogether so it would not be so much direct competition as taking over a subscriber base that already existed and is now going to be left floundering.
I think to make this really work it would have to start off free, in order to reattract the subscribers that Zap2it lost, then as Steve said, start charging after they got hooked back into it.

Why ooesn't Zap2it just charge? If they're shutting down, offer to take it over. I'm just confused as to why they'd shut it down if they could make money and stem abuse by charging a fee?

How is this different than TitanTV? I believe they provide some sort of feeds because the listings get updated into my EyeTV software somehow.

Titan TV is free.

There are all ready many free services.