Turner Classic Movie

[BradF]

The first list is interesting.

It would make sense that these are titles that Turner/Warner has licensed from other studios, with limited rights attached that restrict how and where they can be shown.

But then there are properties on the list that are owned by Warner itself... namely, the silent films, the Private Screenings episode, and the Lon Chaney doc. Curious.

EDIT: That second list is nothing to be ashamed of... Some great movies there.

[james99]

With a 85% match rate, I'm happy (be more happy if i had access to the Canadian version as well, time for an email to Cogeco).

I thought the hit rate would be around 60%, so good job. Hopefully December will be just as good.

[marko]

I honestly fail to see the reason for the excitment over this channel. It should be called the old movie channel rather than the classic movie channel. It seems that Turner's only qualification to be called a "classic" is for the movie reels to still exist. Yes there are some good movies on it but there are far more dogs. Old doesn't equal classic. Just my opinion.

[james99]

As a film buff I can tell you that a typical movie made in the 40's is probably 30-40% better than a movie made today.

If I had to list my favourite 100 movies of all time(not an easy task) I would guess that 80% of them would be "old".

There 406 commercial free movies showing in November. I'm sure you can find a few dogs but dozens upon dozens are true classics.

[Brent McKee]

I have a suspicion that a lot of the cases where substitutions are being made are movies where Canadian rights are owned by Canadian stations and no provision in the contract exists for them to also be shown in Canada by the US stations. I know this has happened in the past, and happens a lot on Spike. There are a couple of other categories that don't fit into this pattern though. One is silents on nights other than Sunday (that would include The Lost World, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Phantom of the Opera). There are a couple of documentaries that aren't being shown (Chaplin Today: Modern Times, Lon Chaney Man of 1000 Faces, and Private Screenings: Jane Powell). Finally we don't seem to be getting the TCM Imports (Kameradschaft - which I was looking forward to seeing - and Yojimbo amongst others). As someone said, it isn't so much that the movies that are being subbed in for Canada are bad, just that there's some really good and interesting stuff that we aren't seeing for reasons which aren't apparent to me.

[BradF]

As mentioned earlier, we don't get to see properties that TCM/Warner has licensed from other studios -- including the silent films that are owned by Universal and of course the foreign films. What we get instead are all Warner owned titles.

[Twilight Cowboy]

Originally Posted by BradF

What we get instead are all Warner owned titles.

Still the best movie channel available in Canada. This should give Shaw and SC subs, who have never had American satellite, a taste of what they are missing with Canada's Soviet style regulated industry.

[BradF]

What we get instead are all Warner owned titles.

That was not a diss.. believe me.

[thenewdc]

Maybe over time, TCM will be able to purchase rights for more of their product when contracts get renewed. Dont assume the 15 percent of stuff they've subbed for Canada is bad. Some of it probably hasnt seen the light of day in this country in decades and would be worthwhile viewing. I also like the fact that they air good quality prints, I'm sure some of it digitally re-mastered, so the picture quality is great.

[james99]

I had that other "classic" channel for a free preview for a few months. Just awful. Bad movies, awful prints.

TCM is the gold standard. AMC has been ruined by commercials and Fox classic channel is actually pretty good.

Now, this hope all providers quickly jump on this channel.

[BradF]

Originally Posted by BradF
As mentioned earlier, we don't get to see properties that TCM/Warner has licensed from other studios --

That may be a bit misleading, now that I re-read it. I was referring only to the films on James' first list, not the entire schedule. There are still a small number of movies from other studios on the Cdn schedule (eg. Double Indemnity, from Universal), presumably films that have no rights issues attached -- otherwise why wouldn't they be excluded as well. I can see this will be interesting, sorting out the two schedules like this every month.

[BradF]

Originally Posted by thenewdc
I also like the fact that they air good quality prints, I'm sure some of it digitally re-mastered, so the picture quality is great.

I've read reports that the early Brit-period Hitchcock movies that TCM aired recently were a revelation to folks who had never been able to see those films before except on cheap, dupey looking DVDs.

[BradF]

Someone from TCM, nic "tcmprogrammer", responded on the forums at the TCM website:

Yes, there are a few substitute films being scheduled in Canada. On some films (currently about 10% of the schedule) we don't have Canadian rights - rather than just black-out the programming for that block of time we are putting in replacement programming. We expect that 10% to eventually come down to below 5%.

[brigort]

This channel is something I've been waiting to see for years.
Shaw/SC need to ge congratulated for pulling this one off. I love these old movies. I'm gonna lose a lot of sleep now. Spent most of the weekend watching some things I haven't (or never) seen in years.

[thenewdc]

Well at least some replacements are better than blackouts, and they are trying to reduce that percentage over time. I guess when they renew their contracts they purchase Canadian rights for more films.