Will Warner Brothers Kill TCM?
By 
This would be a horrible loss to the film community.
It’s not every day that Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson team up. But IndieWire has learned they will today: The three directors have scheduled an emergency call with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav about the layoffs of Turner Classic Movies’ top brass. (UPDATE: Spielberg, Scorsese, and Anderson released a joint statement through Spielberg’s production company, Amblin, sounding an upbeat note about TCM’s future following multiple conversations with David Zaslav. Read it here.)
The network laid off much of its leadership yesterday, including executive VP and general manager Pola Changnon; senior VP of programming and content strategy, Charles Tabesh; VP of brand creative and marketing Dexter Fedor; VP of enterprises and strategic partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy, who also served as the director of the annual TCM Film Festival; and VP of studio production Anne Wilson.
These people were responsible for everything from curating lineups, to shooting intros and outros, and for creating original shows, documentaries, and video essays that serve as major contributions to American cultural history.
Scorsese has often said he has Turner Classic Movies on all day in the background when editing his movies with Thelma Schoonmaker. “It gives me something to turn to, to bounce off of, to rest in, to reinvigorate my thinking — just glancing at some image or combination of images at a certain moment,” Scorsese told the Los Angeles Times of his favorite network. “It’s more like a presence in the room, a reminder of film history as a living, ongoing entity.”
Spielberg appeared at the last two TCM Film Festivals and in multiple TCM documentaries. Paul Thomas Anderson also was at the festival this year; in that same LA Times article, he called the network “holy ground.” Also among its passionate fans are Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, and Patton Oswalt. Tom Hanks just recorded some fantastic intros and outros to “Casablanca” and “Jezebel” opposite 20-year TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, whose name is a connection to Hollywood’s golden age but whose own historical knowledge is even more impressive.
The thing is that TCM costs almost nothing. The updates sound good. And while Hollywood is a cesspool of greed, the biggest names in the city are all working together here. Literally everyone who even remotely cares about film loves TCM. It’s like the best thing Ted Turner ever did! Certainly better than CNN. There’s no good reason to do this. Let’s hope the collected power of the Hollywood elite can turn this around.