DC Film Society: Adam's Rib September 2023

One Stormy Summer, Part I: June - TCM

Summer 2023 started off well for me, so well that I was not prepared for the oncoming storm clouds. The American Film Institute’s Silver Theater and the Library of Congress launched what I hope will be an annual Festival of Film & Sound. The festival featured below the radar gems from the silent and early sound eras, many of them recently restored, along with several short films. Film critics and historians gave the instructions. Author Steven C. Smith, who wrote biographies of legendary film composers Bernard Hermann and Max Steiner, gave an enlightening talk on Steiner. Ben Burtt, sound designer for the original Star Wars trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. and WALL-E, became the festival’s rock star. He gave talks on both his career and the history of movie sound effects. Even beyond the programs, being amongst an audience of fellow film enthusiasts was invigorating. Burtt came back to the festival on its last day, when he didn’t have a speaking role, to see State Secret, a witty tension-filled spy thriller. He sat almost directly in front of me. For those two hours, one of the most innovative and influential film artists and I were just a couple of fans in the audience.

Just two days after the festival ended came awful news. Turner Classic Movies (TCM), my favorite cable channel, had its leadership and much of its staff laid off by its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. The Los Angeles Times reported that “TCM was placed under the supervision of an executive whose other responsibilities included the Adult Swim channel and Cartoon Network.”

TCM runs films and film-related programming commercial free 24/7. While you will find the standards such as King Kong, Citizen Kane, and Casablanca, TCM also offers lesser-known films from the U.S. and around the world. The network shows curated programming with different themes each month and regularly runs silent movies and film noir. It features film documentaries such as Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking, about the pioneering African American director from the silent era, and Women Make Film, which examines many film aspects exclusively through work of female directors. Unlike most media outlets, with the exception of The Criterion Channel, TCM celebrates and cherishes film history.

Warner Brothers, more than any other studio, honors its past, or at least claims to. The studio tour in Burbank includes a full museum covering from 1930s James Cagney gangster films to the present. This year Warner Brothers announced “WB100: Celebrating Every Story” a multi-platform campaign for the studio’s centennial. Studio CEO David Zaslav, in a press release, stated that “The name Warner Bros. is synonymous with entertainment, and we are honored to be celebrating this iconic studio’s centennial and the rich heritage that stretches back to the four brothers who founded it in 1923. Over the past 100 years, Warner Bros. has created some of the most recognizable and beloved films, TV shows and characters ever made, and has been the place for impactful storytelling that both defines and reflects our culture.” As part of WB100, TCM devoted all of April to Warner Bros. films. The programming included 10 films recently restored by TCM in partnership with Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation. TCM fully embraced its parent company’s legacy, but that embrace was not reciprocated.

Zaslav and his fellow Warner Brothers executives have been looking for ways to tackle the company’s $49 billion debt. The company reportedly lost $7.4 billion in 2022. Still, it did not need to inflict these cuts on TCM. Entertainment Weekly reported that “sources estimate that TCM nets around $200 million in cable fees and operates with an annual budget somewhere in the range of $20-40 million.” To put that in perspective, according to Variety Zaslav’s pay in 2022 topped $39 million. If he’s looking for expenses to cut, maybe he could start with his own compensation.

Two months before the TCM cuts, Zaslav appeared at the annual TCM festival and told an audience there that “I’m a fan just like you. If I wasn’t here, I would be sitting with you. I watch Turner Classic Movies all the time. It’s the history of our country, the motion pictures.” Good words, but are they anything more than that? President Biden said his father once told him “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget—and I’ll tell you what you value.” Whether you are a supporter of Biden’s or not, that quote rings true. Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery said all the right things, but when the time came, they valued squeezing some dollars out of TCM more than anything else.

Thankfully, the backlash against Zaslav’s cuts proved fierce and effective. Filmmakers, writers and fans spoke out against this assault on our film legacy. Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson met with Zaslav. The three directors agreed to take a more active role curating and developing programming. The company restored some of the budget cuts and changed the structuring so that TCM would not have to report to the same people who oversee cartoons. Most importantly, key leadership, including the programmers, were brought back or are coming back. Publicly, both Warner Bros. Discovery and TCM hosts are saying that all is well. Scorsese, Spielberg and Anderson praised Zaslav’s “commitment to honoring the TCM legacy while also involving us on curation and programming.”

While it’s unclear whether the TCM staffing levels will go back to what they were before, the network appears safe, for now anyway. For all his badly planned and executed actions, at least Zaslav listened to what Scorsese, Spielberg, and Anderson had to say. Scorsese is 80 and Spielberg is 76. What happens if the next CEO proves even more nearsighted, and those film luminaries aren’t with us anymore? TCM turns a profit, but it’s never going to become a huge moneymaker. Its real value lies in the art, entertainment, knowledge, and joy it shares. The network not only preserves films’ and filmmakers’ legacies, it keeps them relevant. It gives those of us who love classic films a touchpoint and enables that love to grow in younger generations. TCM’s true worth can never be measured in cash flow. Unless those in charge of Warner Bros. Discovery understand that the network may again be on shaky ground.

Adam Spector
September 1, 2023