IMDB: Change the channel

Jon Delfin is the last set of eyes to see the TV Barn TV Picks before you, the reader, do. He uses a variety of sources to check Tom Heald's facts. And he used to depend on the Internet Movie Database, one of the oldest and, in its distant past, one of the few reliable sources of entertainment information on the Web.

No longer.

Here's the letter Jon recently sent to IMDb:

I appreciate the difficulty of organizing and maintaining this site. But whoever tried to redesign the TV acting credits listings has tried to fix what wasn't broken, and now it's destroyed.

TV show pages no longer distinguish show regulars from guests. The main page should list the regulars, with the guests in the "episodes cast" page. Problem is, the regulars have gotten lost.

A random example: "Parker Lewis Can't Lose." Tim Stack and Mary Ellen Trainor played Parker's parents for three seasons. Neither name appears on the main page; each name appears exactly once on the "episodes cast" page, where, according to the new world order, they should be listed for every episode. Same with William (a.k.a. Billy) Jayne, another regular.

It is so disappointing to know that I can no longer depend on IMDb for accurate information.