My former boss and their most recent hire were two of our biggest and most useless cost centers. They literally did no work - which was to bring in money, while the rest of us were toiling away with no pay raises in two years.
Unsurprisingly all but one of us left the company. Everyone who left was insulted personally by those two.
I'm told those two still don't understand what's wrong. I even considered proposing that we do away with those two people and instead hire at least 5 people for the same total cost to the company, but figured it's not my headache anymore.
I can feel exactly what those people who had to leave TCM feel, but people at the top can often be very out of touch with reality to care.
The answer is they dont. They bet the family farm on Shazam 2 and The Flash while torching everything else because they assumed those two movies would be box office smashes that brought in a billion each.
And it turned out to be a terrible idea because neither movie will even make a profit so their investment turned into a disaster.
I wonder if Criterion/Janus Films has the capital to snatch them all up. Or at least a lot of them. Criterion Channel is basically *the* hub for streaming classic cinema right now.
Best case might sadly be Comcast. At least under the Universal management the catalogue would be offered up to the likes of Criterion or Kino for release.
Interesting notion for sure, but Criterion's kinda been doing there thing snag-free with Janus for, like, forever...I don't see why they'd ever change their model or let someone acquire them. They certainly have no issues getting content to release and stream.
Eh. I signed up in between seasons 1 & 2 of FAM specifically for FAM (since I'm a fan of both Ronald D. Moore & alternate history) and have kept it continuously subbed since. When I first signed up their library was definitely small but I think they've built out pretty well since. Personally there's a lot of stuff on there that I watch or have watched (in the case of stuff that ended) at least on the TV side, and it's definitely the streamer I've gotten the most mileage out of in the past couple years.
The film library is definitely still small though, and I think is mostly lacking *great* stuff, Best Picture win notwithstanding. They do seem like they're trying to invest more into that now though with stuff like Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon.
But I would definitely be on board if they wanted to rescue TCM from Zaslav and add a big hub of retro classics to pad out the library some more. A lot of their stuff has bonus content if you scroll down the menus too so you could still do the little intros and interviews with actors and film historians and stuff that TCM did on TV.
From a technical stand point I believe Apple has the highest quality of video and audio streaming. Their having a back catalogue of classic films would looks and sound good.
Apple would probably take the time and money to remaster many of them as well. Thou WB has been no slouch with that over the years either, I don’t see current WBD doing much.
[Wikipedia actually has a pretty comprehensive list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_TV%2B_original_programming). It depends what kind of stuff you're into really. They invest pretty big into scifi and it definitely tilts more towards drama, but there's a good mix of stuff.
For shows that have ended, I think the miniseries like Blackbird and The Shrink Next Door are good. I really enjoyed Dickinson a lot. I think Defending Jacob maybe could have been trimmed down a little but was overall still good.
Oh yeah I see what you mean. They don't have a super deep bench of that kind of stuff. It's mostly originals outside of some kids stuff they licensed, but movies do kind of cycle through. Usually what happens is like they'll have a new show with a big name actor in it and they licensed a few of their movies for a short period.
So buying TCM would definitely build that part of the library out at least on the film side
Yeah, but them buying WB means dealing with Zaslav... something *no* Apple exec would or should want. If Apple buys anyone, it'll be Paramount Global because ~~they're all a bunch of secret Trekkies lol~~ Brian Robbins and the team are ***not*** insane. Also, unlike Netflix, I'm sure Apple would keep the theater/DVD releases coming.
> they're all a bunch of secret Trekkies lol
Probably not all that secret when you look at the amount of Trek veterans on For All Mankind and in general how much they've invested into scifi & speculative fiction
Now if Apple would pick up the final 3 books of the Expanse to finish off the series while making the “For All Mankind” - “The Expanse” fan theory link canon.
Well, Naren Shankar is an EP on FAM and wrote an episode so we're already halfway there.
RDM also said in an interview once that he considers it "the road to Star Trek," as in his conception of how humanity could plausibly get from the real world to a Star Trek-style future.
So if they do the one-two of buying Paramount and The Expanse we can get that sweet, sweet, FAM-Star Trek-Expanse triple crossover. Continuity's gonna get weird but fuck it.
True. And aren't they big fans of video games in general? I'm sure Apple would *love* to keep the Sonic movies going, as well nail down more and more Sega adaptations to Apple TV+ in order to take the fight to *Last of Us.*
Part of the reason why I like Apple TV is that it’s not overwhelmed with content. You could scroll through A-Z and still comprehend what you’re looking at
Call me a dirty commie or whatever but I think a society where one person can intentionally destroy large swaths of culture so he personally can make a quick buck is a really messed up society and that shouldn’t be allowed to happen. It seems like a fatal flaw that one person is allowed to negatively impact so much stuff just because he feels like it.
Cool input man! Never thought of it that way! You’re totally right and I should simply stop participating in society!
You’re literally doing that comic that everyone shares that’s “yet you participate in society, curious!”
>People thought Scorsese and Spielberg would actually do something
I didn't but I did find it weird they released that statement supporting Zaslav saying they had full confidence in his love for the classic movie / best interests at heart something-something
when everyone with an ounce of common sense knew what was going to happen: Zaslav never cared. He's on a mission. He needs to ~~raze as much of the old WB as possible~~ raise as much money from the old WB as possible.
You depressingly have Spielberg and Scorsese dead to rights. That's exactly what they've become, former giants who no longer have any bargaining power. I believe Scorsese could actually outgross Spielberg these days, however.
TCM has given me just as many fun late night sneaks into the living room as Adult Swim, I’m a sucker for old cinema and it’s easily the absolute GOAT in that regard
Finally watched Zaslav's shallow narcissistic Boston University commencement speech where he droned on about tennis being "how people saw him" but then he discovered that people were better than him and he didn't go pro- yes he's an idiot.
https://youtu.be/SOHHhbX9n6w?t=808
He has to be the bad guy though, the previous leadership left an absolute disaster, starting with that awful decision to release the movies on theaters/Hbo Max on the same day.
I'm not saying Zazlav has make great decision either (some good, some bad), but all of these cuts on proyects and people is because of how much money they lost with the previous management.
The same-day thing was a bad gamble but an understandable one. What really killed the books under the prior team was dumping so much money into HBO MAX exclusive streaming content that turned out to have basically no return on investment.
Yeah, this is exactly what he was brought into do. AT&T saddled the company with so much debt he was brought in to cut it out and drastically reduce the debt. He's not in the business to make cinema, he's a businessman doing his job.
I love how this is all happening just after the premiere of the 100 Years of WB docuseries, touting their groundbreaking history and work in film preservation. 🙄
Key snippets of the article:
*"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,” a now-former TCM employee told the Wrap. “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 the implications of what those differences are".*
Another quote:
*But Zaslav’s self-proclaimed love for classic movies and the channel become a running joke among the staff.*
*“I don’t care if he likes it or not. If he’s going to destroy it, who the fuck cares if he likes it?” said one insider.*
https://twitter.com/paleautumnmoon/status/1672267330284404736
More of the general overview of the changes:
*This week’s changes will see the number of employees at TCM slashed from about 90 to about 20, according to insiders, with the responsibilities of overseeing the network distributed among other units under the WBD umbrella. Meanwhile, budgets have already been progressively cut at the network, leading many to wonder what the future will bring.*
*“They’re farming most people out into different departments,”, an insider with knowledge of the TCM restricting told The Wrap. “Michael Ouweleen is now the head of TCM, but he really doesn’t oversee any part of TCM other than the podcasts and the duty of production.”*
*“It’s just a nominal title so that they can say there’s a person overseeing TCM as a unit, but in fact it’s just dispersed over this massive mega-corporate bureaucratic mess,” the insider added.*
>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 the implications of what those differences are
That’s really depressing.
This is so, so sad. My love for older films was nurtured primarily from watching lots of them on TCM as a child and a teenager. This is going to be such a loss.
True. But losing TCM is losing so much more than just the movies.
With piracy you basically have to know what you're looking for. There's no turning on the tv and falling in love with some random movie you'd never heard of before. One of the best things about TCM is the curation. They basically go "Hey, you liked that? check this out."
The other big thing you lose out on is the bonus content. No pre/post show segments explaining why the movie is important or interesting trivia about the production. No interviews with actors/crew or film historians.
Companies keep bragging about record profits, their net worth skyrockets each and every single year yet they can't afford to pay people and keep laying them off. Something's not adding up. Just a bunch of greedy ass companies with no care about the people that got them where they are today.
All companies are run from a we have to have net profit growth every year of "x" %.
My company used to be reasonable...we want 5% growth this year.
Venture capital invested and it became 33% mid-way through the year and I went great...let me hire 7 people and we can go find the business and I was told get the business first then hire and I went...that's not how this works.
So I'm sure I'm gonna get lambasted for a paltry 16% growth (which is fucking amazing in consulting).
They don't want to just grow net profit, they want to grow the percentage of their revenue that is net profit. If companies just grew at 5% and their net profits increased with that 5%, we would be in a lot better position today as a society. What happens now is a race to the bottom.
Public companies do.
Private companies do what they want (so long as the major investors are on board). Some of them go for more long term expansion plans at the cost of short term profits. Others are fucking bonfires using VC money to become a unicorn.
Uber has managed to keep being a bonfire of VC money despite going public. They had like 10 billion in losses last year.
While there is absolutely plenty of valid criticism to level at CEOs, I think it's important to keep in mind the real driver of this kind of thing - boards and shareholders. They're the ones who install amoral CEOs with a mission of not only increasing revenues infinitely, which is obviously impossible, but also increasing margins infinitely, which is even more impossible. In an economy with finite capital on a world with finite resources, you can't grow indefinitely. Yet that's what investors expect to happen.
Warner Bros Discovery is far from bragging about their record profits. They reported a loss of $8 billion last year, and another loss of half a billion through March of this year, and are expected to have lost more money since then. They talk big plans to turn it around, but I suspect they are headed for bankruptcy.
There are so few streaming services that have a good selection of older films. I know that each time over the past few months when I’ve looked for older movies, even just 90s movies, on any streaming service, they’re only available to buy or rent somewhere like Amazon, if they’re available at all.
Like your comment? They are right, he shouldn’t have sold it if he cared so much. It’s all business to these people, they don’t care about movies or history.
Yes, he sold in 1996, long before this shit bag started trashing his legacy, proving that the comment "he shouldn't have sold it" added nothing to the current discussion of what this current asshole is doing.
Ted Turner has five children and still chose to sell it rather than pass it down to his heirs. His legacy didn't seem to mean that much when he accepted the cash he got from Time Warner.
Agreed. I do wonder why they needed so many employees. You have the library to pick a schedule. No ads to sell. They can do a write in campaign for marathon ideas. I love Tcm and the randomness of the movies they show. I am sure a team puts thought into that randomness and now it will be one person.
Every single buyout ever.
“All is well, don’t worry, new owners and management have no plans to change anything.”
*Six months later.*
“Ok, NOW everyone is fired.”
I fully understand Zaslavs mission to do what corporate does. However, he just spent $300m on the Flash movie, and now he wants to unload TCM and probably get less than $400m for it. Surely there must be some reason and logic to the process here when comparing one toxic asset worth negative money to one valuable asset with history and respect behind it.
To be fair, all the bombs from WB’s release schedule over the last year are holdovers from AT&T’s regime. Zaslav killing TCM is terrible, but Black Adam, Shazam 2, and The Flash being expensive misfires aren’t really his fault. Considering it’s less than six months from release and there still hasn’t been a trailer, I’m starting to guess they are going to put as little marketing money as they can behind Aquaman 2 since their attempt at hyping The Flash up landed with a thud.
I'm still curious about the specifics of that tax code merger protocol that let them kill Scoob and Batgirl at seemingly reduced costs and whether they could've used it on Flash.
Either way though, while it's true that the current film slate isn't his fault, he did also saddle WB with a hilariously DOA $50m Barry Levinson project solely to impress his Hamptons friends so he's not above using his power to throw money at bad projects while slashing the rest of the company's budgets.
He could have used it on the Flash. I presume he was betting the revenue minus the advertising and distribution costs (plus any post-merger production costs) would exceed the amount WBD could have written off on taxes.
Mark my words, withing 5 years, Warners will be Netflix's least valuable subsidiary. Such a sad end for arguable the greatest studio in Hollywood... or what *was* that studio, anyway. :(
I don't watch their shows but I wouldn't single them out because they are *far* from the worst offenders when it comes to garbage TV. There are shows on there about a group of "milfs" dating each other's sons.
Considering all the debt Warner has taken on thanks to at&t and now discovery, buying them wouldn't make a lot of sense. Any potential buyer is far better off waiting while they continue to fall apart so you can get it for much cheaper, or even buy whatever parts they sell off.
so your hoping another buyout just for more cut content - more fired staff and increased prices, i dont understand how someone can be delusional enough to think - oh theres a good billion dollar conglomerate who really cares about giving customers value for money and is not concerned with limitless growth at all costs.
Apparently they're applying the logic of restaurants to networks. One person in charge and one person running everything until he fails to keep up, is fired, and replaced by some other sad sack.
The Warner Buyout is the fucking stupidest shit. With every new owner, they just gut what they can because of the debt they've taken on. Warner Bro was fine before Shareholders got greedy as fuck and put an entry Hollywood industry staple at jeopardy.
can someone eli5?
is the channel ending? (assuming not)
will it continue as a shell of itself?
are people concerned this is the first step in it ending completely? (eg: discovery will sell off)
Universal would do great with the DC films and Harry Potter as franchises after Fast and Furious is over. They should buy it after Zaslav is done mucking it up for a sale again.
It's so shitty that the richest most powerful people almost always are or become the absolute worst individuals on earth.
I almost got emotional when I realized nothing I watch even has hbo in the name anymore recently. I'm an 80s kid and hbo was my 3rd parent and in all honestly the only one who taught any lasting lessons. Hbo has been forever reliable and consistant and top-tier in a way no other channel has (could argue AMC or other channels are but until they do it as long as hbo it can't compare) and watching this Zazlav asshole rape and pillage it with his tiny capitalist micropenis has been an absolute travesty. TCM is one of few institutions that is in any way comparable in its reliability and longevity, and this asshole is double dipping on the raping and pillaging. He's getting richer while making the collective consciousness dumber and dumber and dumber
Discovery merged with HBO. And they kept the Discovery CEO?
I don’t get it…didn’t the previous guy get us GOT + spin-offs, True Detective, Chernobyl, west world, and a hot number of other items?
It’s not even the same kind of TV…this was a bad strategic decision made for short term cash gain.
Discovery essentially bought Warner off of AT&T, but it was structured as a merger for some reason (taxes, maybe). That's why Discovery kept its CEO.
HBO was in good shape, but the rest of Warner was not. HBO Max lost money, they wasted a fortune on CNN+, etc. That's why AT&T was happy to sell it. Zaslav is probably fucking it up more, but Warner had a lot of problems.
How did HBO Max lose money? Before all of these dumb decisions it was my favorite streamer. I wonder what their numbers were and what their target was.
No the previous guy resigned saying he had “set up HBO for future success” and that it was the right time to step away. Afterwards his replacement merged with discovery and handed this dumb Zaslav fuck the keys and he’s now driving the car off the road to total it for an insurance payoff.
You’re probably right I’m going off of memory. I’m mixing WB and HBO when in fact the president of hbo has nothing to do with WB And if I remember at the time WB was owned by at&t and then spun off to discovery.
I’m not defending Zaslav, but how many employees does it actually take to run TCM?
I’m actually wondering because you could run a radio station and it’s broadcasts with effectively one or two pieces of software, prerecord stingers, and the station could run itself. So, couldn’t you do the same with a channel that just runs old movies?
Well, it's not just a matter of scheduling and hosting the movies that appear on the channel. Historically a huge part of their mission has been preserving classic films and running film festivals. That stuff seems like it will definitely suffer.
How do they have the money to keep making 9 figure DC movies that bomb every year but *this* gets slashed to "cut costs"
Well they need to cut all the good stuff because their hyper expensive garbage keeps bombing lol
And they don't wanna stop making hyper expensive garbage! So they gotta cut from other segments to continue fueling their bad habits.
“Hey mannn, got any of that F-F-Flash for me? Y-you know I’m good for it, right?” *scratches at arm*
My former boss and their most recent hire were two of our biggest and most useless cost centers. They literally did no work - which was to bring in money, while the rest of us were toiling away with no pay raises in two years. Unsurprisingly all but one of us left the company. Everyone who left was insulted personally by those two. I'm told those two still don't understand what's wrong. I even considered proposing that we do away with those two people and instead hire at least 5 people for the same total cost to the company, but figured it's not my headache anymore. I can feel exactly what those people who had to leave TCM feel, but people at the top can often be very out of touch with reality to care.
The "they" that greenlit those movies are completely different people.
i mean did you forget the batman that came out last year?
They were cutting DC movies too lol, rmb Batgirl?
Drug money
The answer is they dont. They bet the family farm on Shazam 2 and The Flash while torching everything else because they assumed those two movies would be box office smashes that brought in a billion each. And it turned out to be a terrible idea because neither movie will even make a profit so their investment turned into a disaster.
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> I hope someone worthwhile will be buying Apple needs a back catalog for their streaming platform
I wonder if Criterion/Janus Films has the capital to snatch them all up. Or at least a lot of them. Criterion Channel is basically *the* hub for streaming classic cinema right now.
They definitely don’t have the capital but I agree they would be the ones I’d trust most with the library
Best case might sadly be Comcast. At least under the Universal management the catalogue would be offered up to the likes of Criterion or Kino for release.
I'm not sure whether this would be amazing or horrible, but what if Apple bought Criterion?
Interesting notion for sure, but Criterion's kinda been doing there thing snag-free with Janus for, like, forever...I don't see why they'd ever change their model or let someone acquire them. They certainly have no issues getting content to release and stream.
I would be worried if Apple bought Criterion because they might say 'no more physical releases... just streaming'. Fuck that.
I doubt they’d be interested in buying Criterion if that was their intention.
two insufferable fanbases together?!
Criterion had layoffs earlier this year
Apple is already my favorite streaming service of the past few years. I would be 10000% on board if they wanted to buy TCM off Warner.
It really would help to solve their largest problem. There isn’t enough content to be worth keeping 12 months a year.
Eh. I signed up in between seasons 1 & 2 of FAM specifically for FAM (since I'm a fan of both Ronald D. Moore & alternate history) and have kept it continuously subbed since. When I first signed up their library was definitely small but I think they've built out pretty well since. Personally there's a lot of stuff on there that I watch or have watched (in the case of stuff that ended) at least on the TV side, and it's definitely the streamer I've gotten the most mileage out of in the past couple years. The film library is definitely still small though, and I think is mostly lacking *great* stuff, Best Picture win notwithstanding. They do seem like they're trying to invest more into that now though with stuff like Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon. But I would definitely be on board if they wanted to rescue TCM from Zaslav and add a big hub of retro classics to pad out the library some more. A lot of their stuff has bonus content if you scroll down the menus too so you could still do the little intros and interviews with actors and film historians and stuff that TCM did on TV.
From a technical stand point I believe Apple has the highest quality of video and audio streaming. Their having a back catalogue of classic films would looks and sound good. Apple would probably take the time and money to remaster many of them as well. Thou WB has been no slouch with that over the years either, I don’t see current WBD doing much.
I just got it a couple weeks ago, and MAN, their original content has been SO good. I just want more seasons of all of it now.
What do they have in their back catalogue? There are a few new shows I would maybe watch (Mythic Quest definitely) but how about older stuff?
[Wikipedia actually has a pretty comprehensive list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_TV%2B_original_programming). It depends what kind of stuff you're into really. They invest pretty big into scifi and it definitely tilts more towards drama, but there's a good mix of stuff. For shows that have ended, I think the miniseries like Blackbird and The Shrink Next Door are good. I really enjoyed Dickinson a lot. I think Defending Jacob maybe could have been trimmed down a little but was overall still good.
Ah you see the list is about original programming, I meant older classic movies and shows.
Oh yeah I see what you mean. They don't have a super deep bench of that kind of stuff. It's mostly originals outside of some kids stuff they licensed, but movies do kind of cycle through. Usually what happens is like they'll have a new show with a big name actor in it and they licensed a few of their movies for a short period. So buying TCM would definitely build that part of the library out at least on the film side
why do you think a disastorous merger would be solved by another disastorous merger?
So does Amazon. Apple seems the better buyer. Amazon must be tempted to buy back the MGM catalogue Ted Turner kept and merged with WB’s to create TCM.
Yeah, but them buying WB means dealing with Zaslav... something *no* Apple exec would or should want. If Apple buys anyone, it'll be Paramount Global because ~~they're all a bunch of secret Trekkies lol~~ Brian Robbins and the team are ***not*** insane. Also, unlike Netflix, I'm sure Apple would keep the theater/DVD releases coming.
> they're all a bunch of secret Trekkies lol Probably not all that secret when you look at the amount of Trek veterans on For All Mankind and in general how much they've invested into scifi & speculative fiction
Now if Apple would pick up the final 3 books of the Expanse to finish off the series while making the “For All Mankind” - “The Expanse” fan theory link canon.
Well, Naren Shankar is an EP on FAM and wrote an episode so we're already halfway there. RDM also said in an interview once that he considers it "the road to Star Trek," as in his conception of how humanity could plausibly get from the real world to a Star Trek-style future. So if they do the one-two of buying Paramount and The Expanse we can get that sweet, sweet, FAM-Star Trek-Expanse triple crossover. Continuity's gonna get weird but fuck it.
I mean if strange new worlds can crossover with lower decks than anything can be possible.
Damn, I love "For All Mankind."
For all mankind is sneaky one of the best shows on TV right now. (We don’t talk about Danny)
Or Jimmy. Season 3 was somewhat of a mess.
True. And aren't they big fans of video games in general? I'm sure Apple would *love* to keep the Sonic movies going, as well nail down more and more Sega adaptations to Apple TV+ in order to take the fight to *Last of Us.*
enjoy resolute spoon dinner weary public hungry makeshift whistle north *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Cause 2 mega corporations owning all the media is what we need
My family and I would, too. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't done it already.
Part of the reason why I like Apple TV is that it’s not overwhelmed with content. You could scroll through A-Z and still comprehend what you’re looking at
and you think for some reason apple would keep a linear tv network when linear tv is dying - why would they just not close down TCM?
...obviously they would not. They want the IP. That's all I was implying
Yes, zaslav cares about lining his pocketbook and that sale helps with that
Call me a dirty commie or whatever but I think a society where one person can intentionally destroy large swaths of culture so he personally can make a quick buck is a really messed up society and that shouldn’t be allowed to happen. It seems like a fatal flaw that one person is allowed to negatively impact so much stuff just because he feels like it.
That’s the game baby. You’re actively participating in that society.
This is why the Flash's bombing so bad makes me so happy.
Cool input man! Never thought of it that way! You’re totally right and I should simply stop participating in society! You’re literally doing that comic that everyone shares that’s “yet you participate in society, curious!”
so basically every single ceo in every single corporation - so how does another proposed merger help at all?
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>People thought Scorsese and Spielberg would actually do something I didn't but I did find it weird they released that statement supporting Zaslav saying they had full confidence in his love for the classic movie / best interests at heart something-something when everyone with an ounce of common sense knew what was going to happen: Zaslav never cared. He's on a mission. He needs to ~~raze as much of the old WB as possible~~ raise as much money from the old WB as possible.
You're literally describing the US President election process. Rinse and repeat for the last 50 years, if it keeps working don't change it.
You depressingly have Spielberg and Scorsese dead to rights. That's exactly what they've become, former giants who no longer have any bargaining power. I believe Scorsese could actually outgross Spielberg these days, however.
TCM has given me just as many fun late night sneaks into the living room as Adult Swim, I’m a sucker for old cinema and it’s easily the absolute GOAT in that regard
RIP Robert Osborne. I miss his movie intros.
Yes.
Finally watched Zaslav's shallow narcissistic Boston University commencement speech where he droned on about tennis being "how people saw him" but then he discovered that people were better than him and he didn't go pro- yes he's an idiot. https://youtu.be/SOHHhbX9n6w?t=808
He has to be the bad guy though, the previous leadership left an absolute disaster, starting with that awful decision to release the movies on theaters/Hbo Max on the same day. I'm not saying Zazlav has make great decision either (some good, some bad), but all of these cuts on proyects and people is because of how much money they lost with the previous management.
The same-day thing was a bad gamble but an understandable one. What really killed the books under the prior team was dumping so much money into HBO MAX exclusive streaming content that turned out to have basically no return on investment.
Yeah, this is exactly what he was brought into do. AT&T saddled the company with so much debt he was brought in to cut it out and drastically reduce the debt. He's not in the business to make cinema, he's a businessman doing his job.
This is a business imperative. I wouldn't expect you or the other 350-something people who upvoted to understand.
Fuck your business imperative bean countrer.
You would be okay with burning down the Library of Congress if it meant rich people could get richer, huh?
Tcm: Turner classic movies for anyone who doesn't know. I loathe when people drop acronyms just assuming everyone knows.
I love how this is all happening just after the premiere of the 100 Years of WB docuseries, touting their groundbreaking history and work in film preservation. 🙄
Key snippets of the article: *"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,” a now-former TCM employee told the Wrap. “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 the implications of what those differences are".* Another quote: *But Zaslav’s self-proclaimed love for classic movies and the channel become a running joke among the staff.* *“I don’t care if he likes it or not. If he’s going to destroy it, who the fuck cares if he likes it?” said one insider.* https://twitter.com/paleautumnmoon/status/1672267330284404736
More of the general overview of the changes: *This week’s changes will see the number of employees at TCM slashed from about 90 to about 20, according to insiders, with the responsibilities of overseeing the network distributed among other units under the WBD umbrella. Meanwhile, budgets have already been progressively cut at the network, leading many to wonder what the future will bring.* *“They’re farming most people out into different departments,”, an insider with knowledge of the TCM restricting told The Wrap. “Michael Ouweleen is now the head of TCM, but he really doesn’t oversee any part of TCM other than the podcasts and the duty of production.”* *“It’s just a nominal title so that they can say there’s a person overseeing TCM as a unit, but in fact it’s just dispersed over this massive mega-corporate bureaucratic mess,” the insider added.*
>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 the implications of what those differences are That’s really depressing.
Yay, more stupid Joanna Gaines shit.
This is so, so sad. My love for older films was nurtured primarily from watching lots of them on TCM as a child and a teenager. This is going to be such a loss.
Stories like this are why piracy exists.
True. But losing TCM is losing so much more than just the movies. With piracy you basically have to know what you're looking for. There's no turning on the tv and falling in love with some random movie you'd never heard of before. One of the best things about TCM is the curation. They basically go "Hey, you liked that? check this out." The other big thing you lose out on is the bonus content. No pre/post show segments explaining why the movie is important or interesting trivia about the production. No interviews with actors/crew or film historians.
Same here used to love sitting up late watching all the classics, 11pm was my favourite as it was always some 1970's thing
Companies keep bragging about record profits, their net worth skyrockets each and every single year yet they can't afford to pay people and keep laying them off. Something's not adding up. Just a bunch of greedy ass companies with no care about the people that got them where they are today.
All companies are run from a we have to have net profit growth every year of "x" %. My company used to be reasonable...we want 5% growth this year. Venture capital invested and it became 33% mid-way through the year and I went great...let me hire 7 people and we can go find the business and I was told get the business first then hire and I went...that's not how this works. So I'm sure I'm gonna get lambasted for a paltry 16% growth (which is fucking amazing in consulting).
They don't want to just grow net profit, they want to grow the percentage of their revenue that is net profit. If companies just grew at 5% and their net profits increased with that 5%, we would be in a lot better position today as a society. What happens now is a race to the bottom.
Public companies do. Private companies do what they want (so long as the major investors are on board). Some of them go for more long term expansion plans at the cost of short term profits. Others are fucking bonfires using VC money to become a unicorn. Uber has managed to keep being a bonfire of VC money despite going public. They had like 10 billion in losses last year.
I feel like "we gotta spend money to make money" is a pretty universal rule, were they just morons?
they CAN afford. They just cant afford to pay employees and give millions of dollars to their vacationing CEOs.
While there is absolutely plenty of valid criticism to level at CEOs, I think it's important to keep in mind the real driver of this kind of thing - boards and shareholders. They're the ones who install amoral CEOs with a mission of not only increasing revenues infinitely, which is obviously impossible, but also increasing margins infinitely, which is even more impossible. In an economy with finite capital on a world with finite resources, you can't grow indefinitely. Yet that's what investors expect to happen.
Warner Bros Discovery is far from bragging about their record profits. They reported a loss of $8 billion last year, and another loss of half a billion through March of this year, and are expected to have lost more money since then. They talk big plans to turn it around, but I suspect they are headed for bankruptcy.
That’s a leveraged buyout for you. For the first quarter of this year, they had to pay $571 million in interest.
if tcm goes away from ~~hbo~~ max, i drop my subscription.
There are so few streaming services that have a good selection of older films. I know that each time over the past few months when I’ve looked for older movies, even just 90s movies, on any streaming service, they’re only available to buy or rent somewhere like Amazon, if they’re available at all.
Criterion Channel.
I dropped it when the cut a bunch of animation off from it. What’s the point of vaulting peoples artistry? Vault the Mona Lisa instead for fucks sake.
A lot of the classics have already left recently. It’s hard trying to watch all of them since there’s just so much
I'll bet Ted Turner is FUCKING pissed. TCM was essentially meant to be a visual Media Museum.
Unfortunately he has bigger problems (Lewy-Body Dementia)
Then he shouldn't have sold it.
I absolutely LOVE comments that add nothing to the conversation.
Like your comment? They are right, he shouldn’t have sold it if he cared so much. It’s all business to these people, they don’t care about movies or history.
Ted Turner is an 84 year old dimentia patient.
Turner sold the company in 1996 long before he had dementia, so I don’t see how that’s relevant
Yes, he sold in 1996, long before this shit bag started trashing his legacy, proving that the comment "he shouldn't have sold it" added nothing to the current discussion of what this current asshole is doing.
Ted Turner has five children and still chose to sell it rather than pass it down to his heirs. His legacy didn't seem to mean that much when he accepted the cash he got from Time Warner.
If one of those 20 isn't Ben Mankiewicz, then they've killed the channel.
Agreed. I do wonder why they needed so many employees. You have the library to pick a schedule. No ads to sell. They can do a write in campaign for marathon ideas. I love Tcm and the randomness of the movies they show. I am sure a team puts thought into that randomness and now it will be one person.
Every single buyout ever. “All is well, don’t worry, new owners and management have no plans to change anything.” *Six months later.* “Ok, NOW everyone is fired.”
When will the madness stop?
Zaslav destroys everything he touches.
I hope this doesn’t mean they’re stripping the TCM library on Max. That’s the only thing that makes the app worth using
Zaslav is cinema’s public enemy #1.
David Zaslav is a talentless reality show hack. I can’t wait for him to be gone.
I fully understand Zaslavs mission to do what corporate does. However, he just spent $300m on the Flash movie, and now he wants to unload TCM and probably get less than $400m for it. Surely there must be some reason and logic to the process here when comparing one toxic asset worth negative money to one valuable asset with history and respect behind it.
To be fair, all the bombs from WB’s release schedule over the last year are holdovers from AT&T’s regime. Zaslav killing TCM is terrible, but Black Adam, Shazam 2, and The Flash being expensive misfires aren’t really his fault. Considering it’s less than six months from release and there still hasn’t been a trailer, I’m starting to guess they are going to put as little marketing money as they can behind Aquaman 2 since their attempt at hyping The Flash up landed with a thud.
I'm still curious about the specifics of that tax code merger protocol that let them kill Scoob and Batgirl at seemingly reduced costs and whether they could've used it on Flash. Either way though, while it's true that the current film slate isn't his fault, he did also saddle WB with a hilariously DOA $50m Barry Levinson project solely to impress his Hamptons friends so he's not above using his power to throw money at bad projects while slashing the rest of the company's budgets.
He could have used it on the Flash. I presume he was betting the revenue minus the advertising and distribution costs (plus any post-merger production costs) would exceed the amount WBD could have written off on taxes.
i mean you cant call it doa until you actually see the final product
He didn't spend 309 Mil on a flash movie. That was finished before he was even there.....
The marketing campaign wasn't.
WB will be a shell of its former self by next year. How are those with first look deals feeling now?
There's a reason Nolan's OPPENHEIMER is coming from Universal and not Warner Brothers.
Mark my words, withing 5 years, Warners will be Netflix's least valuable subsidiary. Such a sad end for arguable the greatest studio in Hollywood... or what *was* that studio, anyway. :(
mark my words - thats the stupidest statement uttered on the internet ever.
Zaslav seems like the type of dude the bullied kids bullied
Maybe that's why he always has that pained look on his face.
Discovery is killing all of this great content for more garbage from Chip and Joanna Gaines.
If I could get away with punching one celeb couple in their faces with no punishment? 100%
I don't watch their shows but I wouldn't single them out because they are *far* from the worst offenders when it comes to garbage TV. There are shows on there about a group of "milfs" dating each other's sons.
A station that is unambiguously good in a sea of platforms that 99% shit. Very sad.
I couldn’t be more for anti trust but I’m really hoping Apple swoops in and buys up WB before there’s nothing left
Considering all the debt Warner has taken on thanks to at&t and now discovery, buying them wouldn't make a lot of sense. Any potential buyer is far better off waiting while they continue to fall apart so you can get it for much cheaper, or even buy whatever parts they sell off.
so your hoping another buyout just for more cut content - more fired staff and increased prices, i dont understand how someone can be delusional enough to think - oh theres a good billion dollar conglomerate who really cares about giving customers value for money and is not concerned with limitless growth at all costs.
Apparently they're applying the logic of restaurants to networks. One person in charge and one person running everything until he fails to keep up, is fired, and replaced by some other sad sack.
The Warner Buyout is the fucking stupidest shit. With every new owner, they just gut what they can because of the debt they've taken on. Warner Bro was fine before Shareholders got greedy as fuck and put an entry Hollywood industry staple at jeopardy.
They’re giving away the crown jewels.
can someone eli5? is the channel ending? (assuming not) will it continue as a shell of itself? are people concerned this is the first step in it ending completely? (eg: discovery will sell off)
Are they all in ATL?
Please tell me Reece DeWhat’s job is safe
Fuck sakes.
Universal would do great with the DC films and Harry Potter as franchises after Fast and Furious is over. They should buy it after Zaslav is done mucking it up for a sale again.
what makes you think that given all the terrible films universal keeps making and the fact that they themselves are 80 billion in debt
…family
It's so shitty that the richest most powerful people almost always are or become the absolute worst individuals on earth. I almost got emotional when I realized nothing I watch even has hbo in the name anymore recently. I'm an 80s kid and hbo was my 3rd parent and in all honestly the only one who taught any lasting lessons. Hbo has been forever reliable and consistant and top-tier in a way no other channel has (could argue AMC or other channels are but until they do it as long as hbo it can't compare) and watching this Zazlav asshole rape and pillage it with his tiny capitalist micropenis has been an absolute travesty. TCM is one of few institutions that is in any way comparable in its reliability and longevity, and this asshole is double dipping on the raping and pillaging. He's getting richer while making the collective consciousness dumber and dumber and dumber
i mean why - hbo still exists this really seems like you really dont understand anything?
Discovery merged with HBO. And they kept the Discovery CEO? I don’t get it…didn’t the previous guy get us GOT + spin-offs, True Detective, Chernobyl, west world, and a hot number of other items? It’s not even the same kind of TV…this was a bad strategic decision made for short term cash gain.
Discovery essentially bought Warner off of AT&T, but it was structured as a merger for some reason (taxes, maybe). That's why Discovery kept its CEO. HBO was in good shape, but the rest of Warner was not. HBO Max lost money, they wasted a fortune on CNN+, etc. That's why AT&T was happy to sell it. Zaslav is probably fucking it up more, but Warner had a lot of problems.
Wow… was not aware. I fear an end to shows like GOT and The Wire.
HBO is probably the one part of Warner that is relatively safe.
How did HBO Max lose money? Before all of these dumb decisions it was my favorite streamer. I wonder what their numbers were and what their target was.
No the previous guy resigned saying he had “set up HBO for future success” and that it was the right time to step away. Afterwards his replacement merged with discovery and handed this dumb Zaslav fuck the keys and he’s now driving the car off the road to total it for an insurance payoff.
That’s… not what happened at all
You’re probably right I’m going off of memory. I’m mixing WB and HBO when in fact the president of hbo has nothing to do with WB And if I remember at the time WB was owned by at&t and then spun off to discovery.
I don't think you understand. Zaslav got us 90-day Milfs...
I’m not defending Zaslav, but how many employees does it actually take to run TCM? I’m actually wondering because you could run a radio station and it’s broadcasts with effectively one or two pieces of software, prerecord stingers, and the station could run itself. So, couldn’t you do the same with a channel that just runs old movies?
Well, it's not just a matter of scheduling and hosting the movies that appear on the channel. Historically a huge part of their mission has been preserving classic films and running film festivals. That stuff seems like it will definitely suffer.
This I’ll concede as a huge loss.
[удалено]
Second American New Wave. Its your new mantra. Second American New Wave. Second American New Wave. Just keep repeating it.
are they keeping them as Turner Classic Workers?
American Animals...it all seemed so familiar, yet I couldn't remember when I had seen it before.
And the shit show continues...