I have included the modified code for the zap2xml.pl script:


#original appendAsterisk subroutine
#sub appendAsterisk {
#	my ($title, $station, $s) = @_;
#	if (defined($options{A})) {
#		if (($options{A} =~ "new" && defined($schedule{$station}{$s}{new}))
#			|| ($options{A} =~ "live" && defined($schedule{$station}{$s}{live}))) {
#			$title .= " *";
#		}
#	}
#	return $title;
#}

#modified code below
sub appendAsterisk { #have to make the change to description rather than the title since I want to modify the description instead
	my ($description, $station, $s) = @_;
	if (defined($options{A})) {
		if (($options{A} =~ "new" && defined($schedule{$station}{$s}{new}))
			|| ($options{A} =~ "live" && defined($schedule{$station}{$s}{live}))) { 
			if (defined($schedule{$station}{$s}{new})){ #here I needed to make it add new to the title since it's a new episode
			$description .= " new";
			} elsif (defined($schedule{$station}{$s}{live})){
			$description .= " live"; #here I added live
			}
		}
	}
	return $description;
}


#original title and description portion
#			if (defined($programs{$p}{title})) {
#				my $title = &enc($programs{$p}{title});
#				$title = &appendAsterisk($title, $station, $s);
#				print $FH "\t\t<title lang=\"$lang\">" . $title . "</title>\n";
#			}	
#			print $FH "\t\t<sub-title lang=\"$lang\">" . &enc($programs{$p}{episode}) . "</sub-title>\n" if defined($programs{$p}{episode});
#			print $FH "\t\t<desc lang=\"$lang\">" . &enc($programs{$p}{description}) . "</desc>\n" if defined($programs{$p}{description});


#modified code below
			if (defined($programs{$p}{title})) {
				my $title = &enc($programs{$p}{title}); #originally here
				my $description = &enc($programs{$p}{description}); #have to change this to the description
				$description = &appendAsterisk($description, $station, $s); #have to modify this to have the description changed, not title
				print $FH "\t\t<title lang=\"$lang\">" . $title . "</title>\n";
				print $FH "\t\t<sub-title lang=\"$lang\">" . &enc($programs{$p}{episode}) . "</sub-title>\n" if defined($programs{$p}{episode});
				#had to modify this to have it print up the modified description
				print $FH "\t\t<desc lang=\"$lang\">" . $description . "</desc>\n" if defined($programs{$p}{description}); #needed to bring this up into the if loop or else cannot mess w/ description
				
			}