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Stan Kenton Short on TCM


DMP

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I see this listed for this afternoon at 3:00 (EDT), I’ll be tuning in. TCL has been playing music related titles the past day or so - “All Night Long” yesterday, “Beast With Five Fingers” and “Shoot The Piano Player” later today. (Now THERE’S a juxtaposition!)

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Sometime in the last year our cable system (Comcast) pulled TCM from our existing package (which we’d been on for 8 years) - which wasn’t and isn’t barebones package by any stretch of the imagination (what we have includes HBO, and like 500 other channels).

And now TCM is only bundled with some souped up add-on sports package (for another $20-$30 per month more even), or some nonsense like that.

We didn’t watch a ton on TCM, but I would scroll through the grid all the time looking for interesting/obscure movies, so I’ll bet we did watch maybe 6-8 per month, plus at least that many more that I might have DVR’d just to see a little bit of, to see some particular actor (usually well before, or well after their prime).

Now, no TCM for us. Annoying, but what can you do?

 

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19 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Sometime in the last year our cable system (Comcast) pulled TCM from our existing package (which we’d been on for 8 years) - which wasn’t and isn’t barebones package by any stretch of the imagination (what we have includes HBO, and like 500 other channels).

And now TCM is only bundled with some souped up add-on sports package (for another $20-$30 per month more even), or some nonsense like that.

We didn’t watch a ton on TCM, but I would scroll through the grid all the time looking for interesting/obscure movies, so I’ll bet we did watch maybe 6-8 per month, plus at least that many more that I might have DVR’d just to see a little bit of, to see some particular actor (usually well before, or well after their prime).

Now, no TCM for us. Annoying, but what can you do?

 

I was irritated about that (and the loss of Starz) I thought about cutting the cord. Still thinking about it.

 

 

 

gregmo

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I rarely watch TCM, although (like Rooster) I do scroll through the listings. But since we’re stuck at home it’s been on more often, catching up with stuff I should have seen (“Gaslight,” “Laura,” “Strangers on a Train,” that era), so hopefully Comcast will leave it alone here. Anyway, Stan Kenton - as with most of those short films, pretty hokey - lots of June Christy, a male vocalist I never heard of (Gene Howard), a female dancer the focus of “Artistry in Rhythm,” a cliched narration...  Good band, though.  (The Lord discography has it as December, 1945.). Couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes. 

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On 5/8/2020 at 2:48 PM, Rooster_Ties said:

Sometime in the last year our cable system (Comcast) pulled TCM from our existing package (which we’d been on for 8 years) - which wasn’t and isn’t barebones package by any stretch of the imagination (what we have includes HBO, and like 500 other channels).

And now TCM is only bundled with some souped up add-on sports package (for another $20-$30 per month more even), or some nonsense like that.

We didn’t watch a ton on TCM, but I would scroll through the grid all the time looking for interesting/obscure movies, so I’ll bet we did watch maybe 6-8 per month, plus at least that many more that I might have DVR’d just to see a little bit of, to see some particular actor (usually well before, or well after their prime).

Now, no TCM for us. Annoying, but what can you do?

 

Unless Comcast is charging different add-on rates for different parts of the country, the add-on package in question is $10 per month. That said, I have yet to bring myself to pony up for it, despite the fact that I watched TCM on a near-daily basis. Our cable + internet bill is already obscenely high, and it doesn't sit well that a channel I'd had for over twenty years as part of the regular channel tier was suddenly moved to a premium tier, especially when the reasons cited by Comcast for doing so were somewhere between contradictory and outright bullshit. 

However, I am concerned for TCM's long-term viability, given that I read somewhere that a pretty big chunk of their viewer base gets the channel through Comcast. I've read lots of online comments since the change from people who have likewise refused to pay the extra $10 despite being longtime viewers. I can easily see a situation developing where TCM gets caught between a big subscriber drop-off from Comcast customers on one side, and pressures from the new corporate overlords at WarnerMedia that were installed in the wake of AT&T's purchase of Time Warner on the other. TCM's always been more of a prestige channel than a highly profitable one, and AT&T didn't make any bones about the fact that even the profits from Warner theatrical blockbusters were small change compared to what AT&T was accustomed to dealing with. 

I'd hate to see TCM disappear permanently as a result of all these factors. But Comcast doesn't have much incentive to play nice about it, given that as the owner of NBC Universal, they're already direct competitors with Warner, even before you get to the much bigger competition with AT&T at the telco/internet level.  

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On 5/8/2020 at 5:20 PM, DMP said:

I rarely watch TCM, although (like Rooster) I do scroll through the listings. But since we’re stuck at home it’s been on more often, catching up with stuff I should have seen (“Gaslight,” “Laura,” “Strangers on a Train,” that era), so hopefully Comcast will leave it alone here. Anyway, Stan Kenton - as with most of those short films, pretty hokey - lots of June Christy, a male vocalist I never heard of (Gene Howard), a female dancer the focus of “Artistry in Rhythm,” a cliched narration...  Good band, though.  (The Lord discography has it as December, 1945.). Couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes. 

I watched it - disappointed that the band wasn't allowed a single instrumental number. Not really representative of the Kenton we know, but not surprising in that many bands were struggling after the war, and this was clearly a very commercial presentation.

I've been a subscriber of TCM for 10 years now (via Comcast) and it's worth every penny, IMO.

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  • 4 weeks later...

And last night.. “The Glenn Miller Story” AND  “The Gene Krupa Story,” followed by something with Benny Goodman and later, Kay Kyser.  And commentary with Christian Sands!  Surreal.  

Edited by DMP
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