According to this article on NPR, someone named Zaslav, who is the head of Warner Bros. DIscovery, has presided over a wholesale dismissal of programmers, producers of special material, and executives at TCM.
Zaslav already has just shut down his overseas equivalent of Turner Classic Movies in the U.K. And he’s the guy who, since taking over the reins at Warner Bros. Discovery, already has turned HBO Max into just Max, which makes no sense — devaluing his own HBO brand.
Zaslav also, since becoming CEO, has overseen the rapid, clumsy devaluation of CNN, by making poorly received moves like that Donald Trump town hall.
Nothing lasts forever, I guess. Where else but on TCM would you be able to see a thoughtful and historically accurate discussion of blackface in movies.
As someone who really doesn’t give a about curation of televised movies (i.e. talking heads diligently explaining what we should and shouldn’t like about them, something I routinely mute or turn off), I’ll be concerned when the quality of movies presented on the channel starts declining and/or commercials get introduced.
There should always be a market for vintage movies on TV, so in the worst case scenario someone is bound to pick up the slack.
Zaslav backtracked, in part, after a Zoom meeting with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson.
The thing is that Zaslav claims to be a big movie buff and actually had Jack Warner’s desk pulled out of storage so he could use it as his own. So hearing from these big directors that he was making a mistake must have hurt.
Correction to the OP: the linked piece is really more of an editorial than a news article, although I don’t know that anything in it is less than true.
That’s not what curation is. Curation is the selection of the programming and the development of the schedule. What you’re describing is commentary.
In answer to the OP, yes, you should be worried. Zaslav is not just evil, he’s also profoundly stupid. He’s of the modern generation of media CEOs who thinks entirely in terms of content monetization. A library of classics is not something to be nurtured and showcased, it must be subject to valuation and sale or else why have it?
As long as Zaslav or anyone like him is in charge, TCM is not long for the world.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with this guy, but TCM has (recently) been putting on some real shit, and repeating the same movies within days. I only watch it mostly just avoid commercials everywhere else, but yeah, it’s going downhill in my opinion.
I thought TCM would keep being immune from network decay but I do fear for its future now. It won’t belong before it becomes 90% reality tv just like every other channel.
All right, I understand. That’s a poorly worded description but I can see the intent behind it.
By selecting and prioritizing specific work, the curator is implicitly making a statement about what he or she finds valuable and believes is worth the viewer’s time. And then by presenting these selections in a thoughtfully structured schedule, the curator can take advantage of common elements across the works in order to highlight and call attention to specific characteristics, weaving threads from movie to movie that the attentive viewer can follow.
Consider the job of a curator in an art museum. One doesn’t simply throw a bunch of frames on the wall and then write little plaques explaining each in isolation. The vast bulk of the work is in choosing a particular collection of paintings and/or photographs and/or sculptures, and, equally importantly, a sequence of presentation and juxtaposition for the collection. Then at the very end of the process, the little plaques are written to, hopefully, provide transparency and illumination into the curation work that led to this exhibition.
The talking-head host segments between movies are the equivalent of those little plaques: the small button at the conclusion of a much bigger process.
And by gutting TCM’s curation staff, the detestable suitgoblin Zaslav has planted his big stupid knife in the beating heart of the channel.
Well, there go my plans for my final years: unable to move or feed myself but still able to watch TCM.
If the content does end up being degraded, I wonder how long some of those hosts will stick around. Most of them seem pretty dedicated to the integrity of their offerings. On the other hand, it’s probably a pretty easy gig for the most part.
What is wrong with Warner Bros (bought by a parking lot operator fifty years ago, by AOL roughly 25 years ago, by AT&T five years ago, and now sold off in essentially a fire sale to a company that operates unscripted TV networks)?
And at least two of those (AOL and AT&T) were terrible mergers.
FWIW, the TCM UK and Ireland services end today. Our listings mag has a blank panel for Friday (and a note re closure) - maybe that indicates that the news came to late to publish another channels listings in the newly free space.
about curation of televised movies (i.e. talking heads diligently explaining what we should and shouldn’t like about them, something I routinely mute or turn off), I’ll be concerned when the quality of movies presented on the channel starts declining and/or commercials get introduced.