The system and method of the present invention provides for automated checking of the program listings data in a database of television program schedule listings used in an electronic program guide ('EPG'). The disclosed invention provides a system and method for verification of the EPG data prior to transmission to a cable or other pay television system (or prior to transmission to viewers). The verification system may be used to check the entire database or a user-defined subset of the database for one or more of the following: missing stations, schedule gaps and overlaps, missing titles, missing copy, missing fields, missing movies ratings, lengthy titles, lengthy copy, editorial errors, and inappropriate language. In this manner, the EPG provider ensures the integrity of the EPG data and substantially reduces the time required to manually check all of the data in the program listings database. The verification system may be easily integrated with other processing steps performed on the EPG data prior to being transmitted to cable and multi-system operators.