Sunday, August 25, 2024

The TCM Website Should Have a Full Month's Schedule

Many Turner Classic Movies fans remember years ago when the TCM website had an online schedule that actually displayed three months in advance. It was then in September 2020 that the Turner Classic Movies website was revamped and the schedule along with it. Not only was the new schedule slower to load than the old one, but it would only display about 30 days ahead. In other words, on August 25 one could not see the entirety of the month of September. It was recently that the schedule on the TCM website was once more revamped. If anything, this newer schedule may be even worse than the 2020 revamp.

Part of the problem is that this new TCM schedule is even slower to load than the previous one. Worse yet, it does not play particularly nice with Firefox. On Firefox it is difficult to see anything more than a week at a time. I loaded the schedule in Vivaldi and it performed better. I was able to view the schedule up to September 21 2024. Of course, this brings up another problem. As late as it is in August, I think I should be able to view the entire month of September as I once could years ago.

What is more, I am not alone in that. The majority of TCM fans I know long for the days when we could see what was on Turner Classic Movies two to three months ahead of time. Regardless, I think most of us would be happy if we could simply see the entirety of the coming month. The simple fact is that many TCM fans (myself included) plan their viewing well ahead of time. I know I would like to know if my favourite movies are on in the coming months so I can set aside time for them. I know many of my friends are the same way.

Of course, there is another reason some Turner Classic Movies fans would like a full-month's schedule of the coming month ahead of that month. In the closing days of any given month many of us bloggers write about what is going to be on TCM in the coming month. I have been doing this for literally years and they tend to be some of my more popular posts. We write about that month's TCM Spotlight, any special themes going on that month, the Star of the Month, and so on. Without a full-month's schedule at our disposal, it makes it nigh impossible to write such posts. In not providing a full month's schedule, TCM could then be missing out on some free promotion from bloggers who write about the channel.

I encourage any TCM fans who miss the days when we had a full-month's schedule ahead of time, when we could see what was going to be on throughout the entirety of September in late August, to send feedback to Turner Classic Movies. All one has to do is scroll to the bottom of any page on the TCM website and click "Contact." That will take one to the Help Center where one can scroll all the way down to 'Contact Us." That will load a form where one can fill out one's feedback. Whatever you do, please be polite.

Turner Classic Movies is my favourite channel and I enjoy writing about it. It really deserves a better schedule than is currently on the website. It deserves a schedule that displays the whole month ahead. and I know TCM fans would certainly appreciate one.

1 comment:

Travis Morgan said...

Maybe David Zaslav is trying to squeeze more money out of TCM two ways. First, why work around your schedule to watch classic movies when you could pay us a small monthly fee for MAX and stream those classic movies whenever you want (and forget about that subscription giving us months on end of fees). Second, TCM is no longer a basic cable channel for some services (XFinity) so why should we tell you what’s upcoming as you might cancel for a month or two if there aren’t a lot of movies you want to watch. That way you stay subscribed and see reason one above.