The high cost of FREE: TCM, Physical Media and the last gasp of vintage film, music and radio.
Turner Classic Movies has been in the news the past week and none of it is good. The new owners are shutting it down in the UK….and there are lots of rumblings that it will soon leave the airwaves in the USA, despite pleas from the likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese.
I saw this coming a few years ago. If it remains on the air due to pressure from Spielberg etc. it will only be a temporary thing…maybe another year or two. You see, the world has moved on…..to most folks under 30 an OLD movie would be something from the 90’s…..something from the 30’s or 40’s is grandpa’s world…or great grandpa’s world. Most 30 somethings could care less about films that old, let alone spend time watching them. Of course, there are exceptions, but not enough to support an entire network in the days of 500 plus channels and streaming services galore.
Yeah, the world of TCM is populated by classics and stars and wonderful stories that anyone, of any age, SHOULD like and SHOULD watch. But, you can’t force them to. Us “old timers” know and love those films but we are a dying audience.
For the past ten years or so, I have been urging, begging and prodding MY generation and anyone else who loves all these old movies, to BUY physical copies on Blu-Ray and enjoy them in your home, when you want to….and to not be dependent on TCM or any other corporate entity to show them. Some of you have…..many of you have not…..and Blu-Ray sales are tiny compared to what they should and could be. And now, your favorite source of FREE vintage films is about to bite the dust. Don’t think for one second that some other service will come along to replace it. When TCM goes, that will be IT.
CD’s are also almost completely gone. Most new cars do not have CD players in them anymore. Everyone is being encouraged to stream their music and listen to it on their phone or computer (all very BAD quality!). We are entering a world where physical media just simply will no longer exist. No more liner notes and mediocre quality…..but hey, it will mostly be FREE. For a while…..
Friends, NOTHING is free. Many think that all these old time radio shows that are available for FREE on the internet and You Tube will remain so…..most likely not. I don’t want to spend money any more than any of you do, but if you want to guarantee that the films, music and vintage radio shows that you love will always be there when you want them, then GO OUT AND BUY PHYSICAL MEDIA, while you still can. The corporate giants that want you to “rent” everything from them through downloads and streaming are still going to make money—and more of it because they don’t have to produce anything physical, just load it up to the so called “cloud” and then charge folks for downloading it. No fuss, no muss, nothing to hold in your hands just computer “files” that exist on your hard drives and phones as long as those hard drives and phones don’t fail. And when they fail, you can pay to download everything again. Who wins in that game????
You know what sounds great and doesn’t evaporate when your hard drive crashes??? RECORDS, CD’S, BLU-RAYS!!!!! Records last the longest, if you care for them! I have CD’s from the 80’s that play just fine after 40+ years, but only because I have stored them in a temperature controlled area. Those of you who have left them in your hot cars will find that they will “rot” after ten years or so.
We have been “conditioned” by the folks who want to kill physical media to accept inferior sound and picture quality because it is CHEAP, FREE AND CONVIENENT. We have been convinced that “the cloud” is the way to go and we don’t need to accumulate or own things and take up room in our houses or apartments. We have been lied to. We have been tricked….and we (well some of you) fell for it. You dumped your LP’s. You dumped your CD’s. You dumped your DVD’s and Blu Rays. You THOUGHT that all that music and film would always be there, somewhere……well, it won’t. It is going away.
TCM will soon vanish. DVD’S AND BLU RAYS will soon vanish. And so will CD’s. And when they do, your world of films and music that you love will vanish too! The next generation doesn’t care about them. The next generation will not miss them. You will. I will.
And wait until those same corporate entities start erasing books you like, but they find offensive. Movies and music you like, but they find offensive. When it is all in the cloud, you control nothing. THEY control what you can and cannot see or hear. And “for the good of society” things like “Gone With The Wind” and other non-PC films will just vanish from the public eye.
In a way, they already have vanished. TCM is but one channel. Out of hundreds….plus the streaming services. When I was young, we had 13 channels of TV and five of those 13 channels ran old movies all the time. It was EASY to find Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, The Universal Monsters, The Bogarts, The Cagneys, the musicals….they were all there and all in regular rotation. Now, they are relegated to just one channel out of 500+ and young folks have to hunt them down if they want to see them. No more discovering them just turning on the TV and flipping a few channels. They gotta work at it. And so, all that wonderful stuff just fades from the public consciousness.
Same with music…..”oldies” are now the 80’s and 90’s and outside of some “classic rock” of the late 60’s and 70’s, you gotta DIG to find older music. It no longer just comes in on your radio….and there is talk of eliminating AM radio as well, so there goes even more chances to hear older music.
There is a place for everything and an audience for everything. My Podcast gets thousands and thousands of downloads and many from young folks who are fascinated by the world of vintage radio programs. The podcasts may indeed be the wave of the future for audio….but what about video??? Don’t tell me You Tube, because everything on You Tube is dumbed down in quality and you have to watch it all in low resolution.
By the way, those of you who like going to the movies……It is very likely that movie theaters will also be a thing of the past within five to ten years.
Yup all the FREE entertainment that you have grown to love and expect is about to be a thing of the past. Enjoy it now, while you still can….and PLEASE, support those businessmen brave enough to still produce and offer you physical media. BUY BLU RAYS, BUY CD’S and stop relying on your computer and your phone for entertainment. When it is all gone, it will be too late.
And it is going, going…….
article by John Tefteller
COCKTAIL NATION 