The Tribune’s weekly TV guide is back in the Saturday paper.

Back, you say?

Why, yes.  For years TV Week appeared in the Saturday paper, so as to be competitive with the guides published by Chicago Today and the Chicago Daily News (the latter of which had a weekend edition published on Saturdays). But at the start of 1973, Tribune Co. eliminated the financially struggling weekend editions of Chicago Today – in what turned out to be a precursor to the elimination of the tabloid entirely, in September of 1974.

And so, on January 7, 1973, TV Week moved into the expanded Sunday paper, along with Today’s comics, columnists like Rick Talley, Jack Mabley, and Maggie Daly,  and syndicated features like Dear Abby.   Temporarily, as it turned out . . . just for the next 36 years.

As a result of the TV Week move, by the way, circulation of Saturday shrank immediately and that of Sunday grew.  It was one of the few times that moving a feature from one day of the week to another actually affected circulation; the next and last time came in 1995, when the Food Guide moved from Thursday to Wednesday and became Good Eating.

So welcome back to Saturday, TV book.  I don’t think anyone expects it to alter circulation patterns this time around.