Macrovision sells TV Guide magazine to a VC firm for $1 -- about one-third as much as the $2.99 newsstand price for a single issue -- while holding on to TV Guide Channel.

With purported dreams of profitability in publishing, OpenGate Capital has acquired TV Guide magazine for $1 from Macrovision, a company which still owns the TV Guide Channel.

Beyond the low price tag, Macrovision gave OpenGate some added incentive by loaning the venture capital firm $9.5 million to accomplish the deal, according to an SEC filing.

Macrovision picked up both the magazine and the TV Guide Channel -- along with GuidePlus TV scheduling software -- upon acquiring Gemstar-TV Guide for an incomparably heftier $2.8 billion last January. After that, Macrovision started working on adding value-added content such as video "feature stories" to TV Guide Channel, sources at Macrovision told BetaNews last spring.

Its GuidePlus software is distributed with ATI TV tuner cards for digital TV (DTV) set top boxes (STBs).

Meanwhile, however, TV Guide magazine lost about $20.3 million in 2007, with "continuing, but declining, losses anticipated for the next two to three years," according to its 10-K filing for last year.

OpenGate managing partner Andrew Nikou has been quoted in an advertising trade publication as saying that OpenGate can convert TV Guide magazine to profitability by investing in the magazine.