A day after a collection of high-profile layoffs at Turner Classic Movies sparked outrage among the many film neighborhood, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has put in new management on the beloved cable community.
IndieWire has confirmed that Warner Bros. Movie Group co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy will add oversight of TCM to their portfolio of duties. De Luca and Adby are anticipated to supervise programming at TCM, taking on for longtime basic supervisor Pola Changnon programming head Charles Tabesh, who had been each laid off on Wednesday.
Along with Changnon and Tabesh, the layoffs included VP of brand name inventive and advertising Dexter Fedor; VP of enterprises and strategic partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy, who additionally served because the director of the annual TCM Movie Pageant; and VP of studio manufacturing Anne Wilson. Amongst their duties had been curating lineups, taking pictures intros and outros, and creating authentic reveals, documentaries, and video essays.
Whereas Zaslav had publicly expressed his support for TCM on a number of events, many feared that the corporate’s cost-cutting measures and deal with tentpole franchises would inevitably result in the area of interest cable community being uncared for. Many outstanding voices had been fast to defend the channel’s position within the bigger movie ecosystem after the information of layoffs broke.
“If TCM is uncared for, or God forbid, shuttered, it might be a large loss to cinema tradition,” IndieWire’s Christian Blauvelt wrote. “It might devalue Warner Bros.’ personal legacy — in the event that they don’t care about this distinctive approach of placing their historical past on show and in context, why ought to filmmakers consider that Warner Bros. values cinema past the underside line?”
Shortly after the TCM layoffs had been introduced, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson met with Zaslav to debate the community’s future. Afterwards, they launched a press release expressing their continued assist for TCM and optimism about its future.
“We have now every frolicked speaking to David, individually and collectively, and it’s clear that TCM and traditional cinema are crucial to him. Our main intention is to make sure that TCM’s programming is untouched and guarded,” the three administrators stated in a press release. “We’re heartened and inspired by the conversations we’ve had to date, and we’re dedicated to working collectively to make sure the continuation of this cultural touchstone that all of us treasure.”