TCM’s UK Channel to Be Shut Down in July
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Just Days after Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson met with Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav to, essentially, make sure he wasn’t planning to kill off Turner Classic Movies (TCM), WBD has decided to shut down the cable channel’s British version.
TCM Movies UK will cease to exist on July 6, 2023 TheWrap has confirmed. An individual with knowledge of the matter told TheWrap the closure is unrelated to the events concerning the U.S. version of TCM, and stems instead from a review of UK market-related linear strategy initiated after the merger that created Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022.
Some of the TCM Movies UK film library will go to UK free-to-air channel Quest.
On Tuesday, TCM chief Pola Changnon exited the company amid layoffs of several other members of the network’s top brass, part of cuts affecting approximately 100 staffers across Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. Networks Group this week.
The channel will now be run by Warner Bros. Pictures bosses Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy.
The layoffs at TCM shocked fans in and out of the industry, leading to a massive social media backlash sparked by fears that WBD is ultimately planning to kill the channel entirely. In response, Zaslav called a meeting with directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson to discuss the future of the network.
“Turner Classic Movies has always been more than just a channel. It is truly a precious resource of cinema, open 24 hours a day seven days a week. And while it has never been a financial juggernaut, it has always been a profitable endeavor since its inception,” the three directors said in a joint statement. “We understand the pressures and realities of a corporation as large as WBD, of which TCM is one moving part. We have each spent time talking to David, separately and together, and it’s clear that TCM and classic cinema are very important to him.”
Spielberg, Scorsese and Anderson said their main goal was to make sure that TCM remained “untouched and protected,” and said they were “heartened and encouraged” by the conversation with Zaslav.
However, former and current employees at TCM have told TheWrap that morale is low at the network, with one insider saying, “no one left is thrilled.”
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An now-former employee blamed the cuts not on WBD’s financial situation, but on the business model preferred by Discovery, which inexplicably became the senior partner in the merger that created Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I think the layoffs were their pretext for wanting to restructure things because they don’t believe in the approach that we take to programming,” they told TheWrap. “They’re used to making a cheap show, playing it 1,000 times and monetizing it with commercials. They have a formula for how to create shows that doesn’t apply to TCM and they’ve never really thought through what the implications of those differences are.”
The insiders noted that these cuts came despite significant cost-cutting and budget slashing at TCM, including the channel’s film festival. Read more about the situation here and here.
Kayla Cobb contributed to this story.
