tcm alert thread (Jun '23 - tcm alert: dead)

The Flash Flopped. Is Turner Classic Movies Paying the Price?

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/06/the-flash-flopped-is-turner-classic-movies-paying-the-price

Zaslav is an impulsive guy, but deciding to clean house at TCM between Sunday night and Tuesday morning based on The Flash's poor performance seems like a stretch. It's more likely he's been planning this for weeks or months, while indicating the exact opposite in public.

Also, now he's claiming he's the one who called the meeting with Spielberg, Scorsese and Anderson lol, in an effort to invite them to be more involved with the direction of the network.

BUT WHY? The reason they're such big proponents of the network in the first place is due to the hundreds of people laboring day and night to keep its mission clear and vital. These dudes don't have the time in their days to take on a burden like that.

I don't care how Morbs this makes me, but I still blame the audiences who opt for Real Housewives for TCM's inevitable demise

Can see it now: Real Housewives of TCM

Flash, won’t pick it up

I don't care how Morbs this makes me, but I still blame the audiences who opt for Real Housewives for TCM's inevitable demise

Can see it now: Real Housewives of TCM

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, June 21, 2023 9:07 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

TCM already shows The Women (Cukor, 1939) at the remotest pretext.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/24/opinion/save-turner-classic-movies.html

TCM is more than a cable channel. It’s a public good, like libraries or the Smithsonian. It enshrines our cinematic past. Anyone in power in Hollywood should feel it is a matter of honor to protect this legacy.

I knew that David Zaslav, the C.E.O. of Warner Bros. Discovery, loved TCM and watched it all day long in his office and on weekend mornings. He had texted me while watching “Annie Hall” and “Miracle on 34th Street.”

He tried to reassure jittery Hollywood titans who, like me, believe TCM is part of their identity; he had a Zoom meeting with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson on Wednesday.

“We need TCM as a singular source of inspiration and history that is accessible to everyone,” Spielberg told me later.

I called Zaslav on Friday, too, just to make sure my femmes fatales weren’t getting taken away.

“YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. ZASLAV,” I said, “AND YOU WILL ATONE.” He laughed at the line from “Network.”

“Let me start with this,” he said. “This is my favorite channel. I think it’s critically important. It’s like a trust. It tells you where America was and where America’s going. It defines how people see this country. This is a beautiful living history.”

We can learn everything from how Cary Grant gets dressed for a date, he said, to why it’s better to be the white hat in a western than the black hat. (I learned that when my older brother showed me “Shane.”)

Zaslav said he was keeping Ben Mankiewicz and the other TCM hosts and wanted to spend more money on the channel and market it better. He has a vision of people like Spielberg, Scorsese, Anderson and Guillermo del Toro getting involved in programming and curating, and he would love to see actors like George Clooney talking about the movies that inspired them.

“I think it could be bigger and more powerful with more reach,” Zaslav said. “This is going to be a magical thing.”

I’ll be watching.

Nothing to see here, DO U SEE?

Wish this guy would take a FANTASTIC VOYAGE of his own.

According to this article, they already slashed the staff from 90 to 20 people...
https://www.thewrap.com/tcm-layoffs-restructuring-warner-bros-future-hosts/

The writing, as they say, is on the wall here I think

Dud.

Too bad Little Bonaparte is no longer with us to weigh in on this massacre.

Should we add RIP to the thread title?

tcm alert: dead

Let’s go with that.

Little Bonaparte

I think Morbs deserves better than that too

Has, knew that was coming.

Don’t know where that extra ‘s’ came from though.

https://www.tvinsider.com/1097230/tcm-layoffs-dave-karger-tweets/

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/tcm-spielberg-scorsese-paul-thomas-anderson-partnership-charlie-tabesh-1235656973/

Cautiously optimistic--Tabesh is at least as big a factor as the on-air hosts in TCM's programming.

We’ll see.

FB post about pulled GQ article

And here

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/business/media/gq-david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery.html

And via defector

https://defector.com/gq-rolled-over-and-showed-its-belly-to-david-zaslav

*sigh*

just saw first cross-promotion for Shark Week on TCM

— Brandon 🚷 (@bnowalk) July 7, 2023

B-b-but what about Jet Week?

recently watched: along the great divide (raoul walsh. 1951. kirk douglas.) dark of the sun (1968. jim brown. rod taylor. loved it!) flesh (1932. john ford. wallace beery.)

stuff i recorded that i need to watch: ah, wilderness!, midnight lace, the unsuspected, jewel robbery, witness for the prosecution, cynthia, the big trees, the feminine touch, don't make waves, first lady, the safecracker, close to the heart, our vines have tender grapes, on moonlight bay, fitzwilly, never say goodbye, hell's heroes, holiday affair, irene, winter meeting.

via tcm i developed a mad crush on miriam hopkins during the pandemic. oof!

Dark of The Sun is awesome.

it really is. i was surprised.

I saw Sullivan's Travels maybe two weeks back on TCM. What an amazing film. So meta!

On Apr 26, @TCM announced a two-night memorial tribute to Harry Belafonte in July.

At some point in the last few weeks, that became a *one-night* tribute.

Night 2 (tonight) was replaced by programming promoting BARBIE, released by TCM's sister company Warner Bros.#TCMParty https://t.co/MHYzG2ihGj

— Will McKinley (@willmckinley) July 22, 2023

I noticed recently that the Watch TCM app has stopped working on my Roku, Android, and iOS devices; the app loads but won't play anything.

Just finished watching THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and then my eyes were blinded by a giant big pink Barbie logo behind Ben Mankiewicz and Greta Gerwig, who is apparently picking the films for this evening, as per an earlier post.

My eyes were so dazzled I didn’t notice the redundant “giant big” in my post.

Ugh, still contemplating this.

They just aired Frank Perry’s incredible Last Summer, but I haven’t had a chance to watch my DVR recording of it yet. I’ve seen a 16mm print from Australia’s National Film Archives and the 1980’s VHS release, which are both different.

I'm glad to see the Watch TCM app is working again

Did it break?

it was out of action on all my gadgets for several days

Same here. But it's working fine now.

No doubt the guy who knew how it worked got fired or else was working on the Barbie tie-ins.

not quite dead

https://ew.com/tv/tcm-insiders-detail-fight-to-protect-turner-classic-movies-network/

Good article – I don't remember EW's reporting getting that granular in the past (in particular the long section potentially linking the cuts to Zaslav's salary/earnings).

Okay, then. But the whole thing made my stomach turn and it is still not quite calmed down.

Oh damn they namechecked Millie in that EW piece. She's a pal, so I'm never not going to be furious about that.

William Friedkin tribute tonight (times EDT)

8:00 The French Connection
10:00 To Live and Die in L.A.
12:15 The Boys in the Band

Read about a movie that sounds interesting to check out (Experiment in Terror, Blake Edwards)… it’s not streaming readily, but turns out it’s on TCM tonight & tmrrw morning; what serendipity.