Can this classic movie channel survive in a streaming world? How TCM is adapting

From left: Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane”; Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in “Gone With the Wind”; Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady”; Alfred Hitchcock; Elizabeth Taylor in “Cleopatra.” Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz once walked the red carpet at an American Film Institute event in Hollywood and found himself standing next to director Steven Spielberg. “We created a world that people wanted to come into all the time and we didn’t assault them with commercials,” said Brad Siegel, a former Turner executive who ran TCM when it launched. In 2016, TCM teamed with Criterion Collection — a home video company that distributes classic foreign and art-house movies — to form FilmStruck, a subscription-based streaming service aimed at cinephiles with classics ranging from “The Best Years of Our Lives” to “Seven Samurai.” The nascent business was shut down after two years along with a number of other smaller streaming services that did not fit into AT&T’s strategy for WarnerMedia. Stewart, who is TCM’s first Black host, demonstrated her value when WarnerMedia’s new streaming service HBO Max became engulfed in controversy last year, pulling “Gone With the Wind” from the site in response to screenwriter John Ridley’s op-ed in the Times that said the 1939 film glorified the antebellum South. It’s why Stewart, Mankiewicz and fellow hosts Dave Karger, Alicia Malone and Eddie Muller were part of TCM’s “Reframed” series in March, which addressed problematic issues related to race and gender in 18 titles that have long been staples on the channel, including “The Jazz Singer,” “My Fair Lady,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Woman of the Year.” “We feel it’s important as being part of a brand in 2021 to recognize what’s going on around us,” said Changnon, adding that younger fans feel more comfortable watching with the historical context provided.