Turner Classic Movies' Website Revamp

This past Wednesday Turner Classic Movies unveiled a revamp of their website. From what I have seen on Twitter and Facebook, TCM fans are less than pleased with the change. I must confess that I have very mixed feeling about the revamp.

For the most part I have to say that I like the new home page. It is cleaner, less cluttered, and more modern looking. The menu is easy to read and it is easy to find what one is looking for. I only have two caveats. The first is that the upper part of the home page, highlighting Turner Classic Movies events, programming, et. al., is a bit too big. I really think it should be smaller, so as to reduce scrolling. The second is that there is no link to TCM Backlot, making it harder to go from the TCM page to TCM Backlot. Other than those two rather minor things, however, the homepage looks good.

I also have no complaints about the TCM Shop. In fact, it doesn't even look like it has changed that much. It is still easy to use and still easy to find what one is looking for. 

Unfortunately, beyond the home page and TCM Shop, TCM's design team appears to have dropped the ball. A major point of contention for TCM fans is the new schedule. First, it takes much longer to load than the old schedule. On both my desktop computer and my phone, it takes several seconds to load. The second is that the font used is so large that one can only view about three movies on the schedule at a time. On the old schedule one could very nearly view a whole day or, at least, most of a day. A third problem is that the little drop down calendar is gone. The drop down calendar made it very easy to navigate the schedule and very easy to see what is going to be on TCM in the coming weeks and even months. With the new schedule one can only see the next six days (seven including that day), and it takes forever to scroll through it. A fourth problem that doesn't seem to be affecting people in the Eastern or Pacific Time Zones is switching Time Zones. I cannot seem to switch to the Central Time Zone. The schedule remains stuck on the Eastern Time Zone! Strangely enough, the only way I can reach the schedule for the Central Time Zone is to go to the schedule for the Mountain Time Zone. It should be no surprise that the new schedule seems to be Turner Classic Movies fans' number one complaint.

Not only did TCM's design team drop the ball with regards to the schedule, but with regards to the TCMDB (the TCM Data Base) as well. Once more, both the font and the images on the page are much too large, meaning it takes a while to scroll through. Another problem is that on the old TCMDB, the entry for any given movie would tell when it was scheduled on Turner Classic Movies. For instance, if I looked up Horror of Dracula (1958) today, the entry would show that it is airing on Monday, October 19 at 8:30 PM Central. On the new version of the TCMDB entries for movies do not display when they are scheduled to air on TCM. That is frustrating.

That the schedule and the TCMDB have lost some of their functionality are a source of displeasure for many TCM fans. In fact, I have yet to hear anyone say that they like the changes made to them. What is more, it is clear that this is not a mere case of people disliking change. People are being very specific in their complaints (such as the ones I have outlined here). In fact, in the tweets I have seen, TCM fans have an entire list of grievances regarding the new schedule.

If you are one of the Turner Classic Movies fans unhappy with the changes to the TCM website (and I am thinking the odds are good that you are), you can contact Support and let them know your objections to the site revamp. They will pass your complaints to the design team. If you do so, please be polite! The customer service representative who handles your ticket is not responsible for the changes to the site and could well be as frustrated with it as you are with those changes. Anyway, to contact Support, go to the bottom of any page on the site and click on "Contact." That will take you to the TCM Help Centre. You will then scroll to the bottom of that page and click on "Contact Us." That will take you to the page where you can submit a request.

While there are things I like about the new TCM website (the home page, the TCM Shop), I am very disappointed in the changes to the schedule and the TCMDB. In fact, I think the new versions of the schedule and TCMDB are so inferior to the old versions of the schedule and the TCMDB that they might be better off trashing both and restoring the old versions. Regardless, I hope they make improvements to the schedule and the TCMDB soon, because otherwise writing my "what's coming up on TCM next month" posts on this blog is going to be very difficult.