25 years later, TCM still abides
(so movie lovers pray)
NEW YORK — There is always an asteroid, real or imagined, bearing down on Turner Classic Movies.
Fears that something might befall the commercial-less bastion of classic Hollywood films aren’t always justified. But there’s an instinctual understanding that keeping anything good and pure alive in this dark, dark world is against the odds. By now, the hosts and executives of TCM are quite accustomed to fretful, agitated fans coming to them for reassurance that, yes, Turner Classic is OK, and, no, commercials aren’t coming.
“I’ve had the good fortune to get to know Paul Thomas Anderson a little bit and let me just put it this way: He never asks how I’m doing,” said Ben Mankiewicz, who in 2003 became only the second TCM host after Robert Osborne.
Almost everything in cable television and film has changed since Ted Turner launched the network in 1994. But through endless technological upheavals, four U.S. presidents and three Spider-men, Turner Classic humbly, persistently, improbably abides. On Sunday, TCM will turn 25, celebrating a quarter of a century as a lighthouse of classic cinema; a never-stopping, flickering beacon of Buster Keaton and Doris Day, Barbara Stanwyck and Ernst Lubitsch.
“We view ourselves as the keeper of the flame,” said Jennifer Dorian, general manager of TCM. “We’re stronger than ever.”
That will be good news to the TCM fans whose heart rates quickened after AT&T’s takeover of Time Warner, which had bought Turner Broadcasting back in 1996. That led to restructuring, announced last month, that placed TCM in WarnerMedia’s “global kids and young adults” subdivision, along with Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. WarnerMedia also shut down TCM’s nascent streaming service, FilmStruck, last November after deeming it a “niche service.” WarnerMedia is to launch a larger streaming platform later this year.
The demise of FilmStruck prompted an outcry from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan who petitioned WarnerMedia for its preservation. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood had TCM’s back. One privately told Mankiewicz: “If you think we’re mad about FilmStruck, wait ’til you see what we do if anyone messes with the network.”
Yet the shuttering of FilmStruck (its streaming partner, Criterion Collection, relaunched as a stand-alone service on Monday) reinforced concerns that amid all the juggling and bundling of merging conglomerates, TCM might slip through the digital cracks.
“The fact that there are really passionate, vocal people out there helps us sort of stay the course. I think our corporate bosses don’t want to upset those people,” said Charlie Tabesh, TCM’s programming chief and a 21-year veteran at the network. “While you can never promise anything, I’ve been through it enough that I’d be surprised if they changed it.”
Change can be a dirty word around TCM. “Lower case ‘c,’ please,” said Mankiewicz. “Evolve” is more preferable. TCM is, after all, a place where time nearly stops. In the 25 years since its founding, its focus remains overwhelmingly the golden age of Hollywood. Movies from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, Tabesh said, make up approximately 70% of its programming.
“That’s our bread and butter,” said Mankiewicz. “Who doesn’t like bread and butter?”
To mark its 25th anniversary, TCM will on Sunday again air “Gone With the Wind,” the film that it first transmitted on April 14, 1994. Since then, the 1939 epic has aired more than 60 times on the network. The 10th annual TCM Classic Film Festival also kicks off Thursday in Los Angeles with “When Harry Met Sally…”
Fans of Turner Classic are as varied as Martha Stewart, Evander Holyfield, Alex Trebek and Kermit the Frog — all of whom have been guest programmers. Scorsese famously keeps it playing in his editing suite. Keith Richards is rumored to be a devotee. Even Donald Trump once stopped by to talk about, among other titles, “Citizen Kane.” ”Although I’m not sure he’d actually watched the movies he talked about, to be honest,” said Tabesh.