criterionforum.org

Are we certain TCM is still very profitable or is that a "mesofact"?

I don't think it's "very profitable," just that it doesn't lose money. And that profitability is, at least partially, due to it being sold to cable providers in a bundle with high-profile, money-making channels. Nobody but an insider could speak with authority to its profitability, but Paramount's pitch to buy WBD specifically called out TCM (along with CBS, MTV, CNN, and Nickelodeon) as part of a "robust and profitable linear portfolio."

Also:

June 21, 2023: "'And while [TCM] has never been a financial juggernaut, it has always been a profitable endeavor since its inception" - statement from Spielberg, Scorsese, and PTA

June 25, 2023: "You know, the interesting irony is that TCM is quite profitable. It has some of the highest margins in cable. But it doesn't take advertising, so it's very dependent on being carried on pay TV systems."

June 28, 2023: "While TCM remains profitable and commercial-free, the channel depends on revenue from cable and satellite TV subscriptions, a diminishing financial resource as consumers have moved to streaming platforms for video content."

June 29, 2023: "The question being asked by cultural historians, cinephiles and plain ordinary film fans is why TCM had to be part of the bloodletting. It was reportedly profitable, if not hugely so, but by any measure not a significant factor on the merged company’s profit-and-loss landscape."

It's extremely short-sighted to cancel something because you're looking for sheer profit, and this is exactly why cancelling Colbert and shutting down CBS News Radio was heavily criticized. There's enormous value that's incalculable, like building or maintaining value in the studio's properties through constant exposure and promotion rather than burying it or, worse, locking it away, and also in promoting something greater and broader than a specific film - it helps to cultivate and enrich the culture in a way that makes what they produce in general more valuable. But I shouldn't have to put it in the kind of terms that appeals to some money-obsessed jackass, just having these things benefits society, they make life better for a lot of people, and anyone who is in this business for the right things (i.e. it's not just a business) should understand that.

I believe it was a contingent term of the Turner sale to Warner that TCM remain and also be commercial free so long as the other networks remain in operation in perpetuity - such was the extent of his insistence of the channel’s importance. So I basically have assumed it will be around until the complete dissolution of television networks altogether.

I suspect the complete dissolution of the Warner and Paramount cable TV networks is not all that far off. Like other media companies, they've been starving their cable channels in favor of their streaming services for years. It's incredible to check in on the big cable networks lately and see what a wasteland they've become (even relative to the wasteland they always were, in some cases).

The big entertainment companies are really in a bizarre spot right now where most are actively devaluing, not to say destroying, some of their only "products" that turn a reliable profit, in favor of a product (streaming) whose profitability has yet to be convincingly demonstrated. I don't actually blame the CEOs for this strategy, since it does seem that cable TV as we knew it is a dead end. The influx of advertising on all tiers of Disney+, for example, is the primary response the studios have come up with for this impossible situation. I wonder if it matters in the medium or long term that streaming, in the form of Netflix but also the other services, was sold to consumers as superior to TV because of the absence of ads.

I think there are several factors to the profitability. First, very interesting and clever marketing using the their annual film festival, yearly cruise and selling merchandise as well as wines as a way to help subsidize the main content. Second, the assistence of Hollywood heavyweights and I think there are more than just Scorsese, Spielberg and PT Anderson that are behind the maintenance of keeping TCM viable. Whether Paramount decides to hold on to them, sell them or spin them off I think there will be a safety net of some kind.

I mean, I doubt Paramount-run WB stays in the PTA business after his last movie, Oscar or not, so I’m not sure his voice will carry much weight. I imagine the Ellisons’ first priority will be making Dirk Bogarde head of the steelworks though