History Of TCM (Turner Classic Movies) UK And Europe

This page is a continuation from TNT Classic Movies Europe Branding History (1993-1999) as TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is the successor brand to TNT Classic Movies. This article chronicles TCM UK's existence as a classic movie channel between 1999 up until its closure in 2023.

## TCM's Launch In Europe and Transition From TNT Classic Movies

On 20th August 1999, it was announced that TNT (Turner Network Television) Classic Movies would rebrand as TCM (Turner Classic Movies) on 15th October 1999. TCM brand originally launched in April 1994, which was months after TNT Classic Movies in Europe launched, which meant that after four years, branding for the classic movie channel will finally be made internationally consistent. At launch, TCM had a much larger movie library than TNT Classic Movies, with a library of over 5,000 titles. The newly rebranded channel also promised to offer some original programming, including star tributes, and celebrity interviews.

The owners of TCM, Turner Broadcasting System said the aim of the relaunch, which will affect around 165,000 subscribers in the UK who currently receive the 24-hour TNT via analogue and digital cable, was to provide customers with a stronger entertainment service. Also on 15th October, Turner also revealed that it will end the combined timesharing service of Cartoon Network and TNT to all European countries other than the UK and Ireland, this service was available with no encryption scrambling to 25 million European homes via satellite. The changes also meant that TCM was only available on digital television only, and TNT will transform into a general entertainment channel, much aligned to the U.S. version of TNT, the new TNT will be available on analogue cable and satellite only and will offer drama series, music, and like TNT Classic Movies, this includes WCW (World Championship Wrestling) wresting programming. A variant of Cartoon Network UK was launched for the rest of Europe that yet to have it's own localised version of Cartoon Network, this version timeshared with TCM, and substituted shows where Turner only had the UK and Ireland broadcasting rights to certain shows including Dragon Ball Z and Angela Anaconda, these shows premiered in the UK on 6th March 2000 and 17th April 2000 respectively.

Before TCM launched, the 24-hour dedicated Cartoon Network and TNT services were available in the UK via analogue cable (on a few providers such as NTL), Sky (digital satellite) and On Digital's digital terrestrial TV service.

In regards to the changes, Turner Broadcasting System Europe Entertainment Network president Andy Bird said: 'These changes represent our continuing commitment to better serve our local audiences, customers and advertisers.'

Just before, TCM UK's launch in September 1999, Tom Karsch was promoted to executive VP and general manager of Turner Classic Movies, with a special task to oversee the channel's launch into the international market. Karsch, was at the time, the senior VP and general manager of TCM. Up until this point, TCM has not been present in international markets with the exception to Poland, and there were plans to introduce the TCM brand as a replacement for TNT Classic Movies in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region within the space of two months. Karsch also explained that expanding TCM internationally will help develop the brand, "Expanding into the international market opens up growth opportunities for the TCM brand beyond the limits of analog and digital capacity in domestic markets", also there was the opportunity to expand into merchandising and Internet services to increase TCM's exposure. It was Karsch's mission to get TCM into as many homes as possible in both Europe and the United States.

One of Karsch's responsibilities was to act as global brand manager for TCM to ensure the channel's branding was executed consistently worldwide. Shannon Davis, SVP of On-Air promotions and Branding at TCM was also instrumental in launching TCM in the UK and Europe, she was in-charge of the channel's creative branding department - TCM Creative Services. Davis directed and conceptualised brand elements such as opening titles and idents as well as on-air promotions by using a mixture of live action, animation and effects techniques.

In September 1998, a year before TCM launched in the UK and the majority of Europe, TCM (and Cartoon Network) launched in Poland as localised feeds forming part of PTK (Polska Telewizja Kablowa) cable's Wizja TV package, initially, the channel was available to 750,000 households in the country. This was the first time the TCM brand was introduced in Europe, and marks the first step towards the end of TNT Classic Movies as a brand in Europe and the introduction of its eventual replacement TCM.

In the late 1990's, Turner Broadcasting System Europe started to expand into Eastern Europe, as Western Europe became more localised, the company started to focus on Eastern Europe, this included the improved reception of Cartoon Network in Eastern Europe via satellite (pan-European feeds became accessible via Sirius 2 rather than just Astra 1) and launching localised feeds in the region's largest country in terms of population - Poland. As TCM already launched in the U.S. in the 1994, and with Poland having the first localised launch of a Turner owned classic movie channel in Europe, Turner decided to launch with the TCM brand rather than TNT. Even though Poland was the first country in Europe to have TCM, a lot of the presentation on TCM Poland was loosely based on TNT Classic Movies, this included reusing the same promos and typeface.

On 1st September 1999, A month before the UK launch (as well as before most of Europe), TCM replaced TNT Classic Movies in Spain on satellite platform Canal Satelite Digital. To promote the rebranding in Spain, a special animated segment was created featuring three gangster-like characters, two of them were chasing one carrying a briefcase who ran away and hid himself in the barn. The first gangster wrote "TNT" in the barn's wall with a barrage of bullets, the second gangster did the same but replaced it with the new TCM logo "to finish the job". A variation of this ident (with a bullet-holed smiley face instead of "TNT") also aired on TCM UK.

On 12th October, A few days before the UK launch, it was unsure that TCM would launch on the Sky Digital Satellite platform (the UK's largest pay-TV provider), A Spokesperson for Turner Broadcasting System Europe, told digiNEWS (now known as DigitalSpy) said that neither TNT or TCM (Turner Classic Movies) are planned to make an appearance on the Sky Digital platform. Turner said that they would like to include TCM or TNT on Sky Digital but a carriage deal was yet to be agreed.

By launch date (15th October), Turner made a carriage agreement with Sky for TCM, apart from Sky, TCM was also available on NTL (or still known as Cabletel as NTL was the new name of the company). Turner EMEA's vice-president of advertising sales, Dee Forbes, said that the intention is to roll the channel out across as many platforms as possible. Turner supported the launch of TCM with a national press and on-station advertising campaign, this also included a cover mounted “Bluffers’ Guide To Classic Movies” video on Total Film magazine.

On 30th June 2000, the general entertainment version of TNT closed on analogue cable and satellite, as was replaced with TCM, commenting on TNT's closure, Dee Forbes, sales director at Turner Entertainment Networks, said: ’We are the first to say that general entertainment is pretty saturated and going forward with digital you have to have the strongest programming to maintain audiences.’ TCM became available on analogue cable, increasing its coverage, although there was marketing push for subscribers to push to digital satellite and cable, as analogue satellite services in the UK and Ireland were phased out in stages during 2001, with local analogue cable systems (at this point in time, now mostly owned by NTL or Telewest) closing down at different stages during the 2000's. WCW (World Wresting Championships) programming such as WCW Nitro and WCW Thunder continued to air on the Cartoon Network/TCM analogue timeshare feed during TCM's usual broadcasting hours on Friday nights, but with WCW branding instead of TCM branding, and the 24/7 digital feed of TCM did not carry WCW.

On 30 June 2001, the analogue satellite feed of the combined Cartoon Network UK and TCM UK service on Astra 1C ceased broadcasting, this was when Sky ended most of its analogue services.

During TCM's early days, the channel had a film noir (black and white movie) theme reflective of the early days of cinema. At first the next bumpers and TV guide menus on the channel had a monochrome/grayscale look making use of the TCM character logos (in an old-fashioned cinema ticket graphic), and also "eyes" containing videos and stills of the movies airing that evening. During the second half of the film noir era, the next bumpers and menus became more modern, with the use of a light circles (of a limited range of colours), but on the whole they still had a black background.

## TCM's First Rebrand

In March 2004, TCM moved away from its original "film-noir" appearance, representative of the early days of cinema, in favour of a more colourful, well lit, and contemporary look, the rebrand was necessary as the channel was trying to brighten up its image to build on its growing appeal to younger audiences, as the channel had a high proportion of 25- to 44-year-old viewers, attracted by the cult status of classic movies. Since launch, the channel had a demographic shift, originally the channel appealed to people over the age of 35. The rebrand package was developed in-house by TCM Europe's Creative Services department, with additional work by production companies, Loki and Blue Post. The new rebrand package was rolled out across Europe on 29th March 2004, in the UK, TCM became available with stereo sound for the first time. At the time, TCM was the third-most popular movie channel in the UK, with an average of 5.7 million viewers a month.

By January 2004, TCM had five different feeds serving the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) market, apart from TCM UK (Which served the UK, Ireland, and Malta), there's TCM France (which serves France, Switzerland (Romandy), Belgium (Wallonia), and Luxembourg), there's TCM Spain (for Spain only), an CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) feed available in Polish (lectored), Hungarian, Romanian, and English, serving Poland, Hungary, and Romania, and finally a pan TCM feed available in English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Hebrew, and Greek (which serves the rest of Europe, Middle East, and Africa).

The rebrand package included four 20-second idents based on the concept of movies "heightening and refining the commonplace". Normal everyday situations, such as catching a train or walking the dog, were given cinematic treatment, with the addition of classic film clips played out on light boxes in the scenery. The light box theme was extended to TCM's continuity screens. Words such as "next", "tonight" and "tomorrow" were colour-coded and contained within the boxes.

## TCM's Second Rebrand

In June 2009, TCM UK rebranded yet again with a fresh, more distinctive branded look and new marketing campaign to mark its 10th anniversary. The channel also introduced a wider catalogue of film titles from Warner Bros. Paramount, and Universal. The new rebrand package included a new set of idents focuses on viewers' reactions to film, capturing the emotive experience of great cinema, also a separate set of idents were made celebrating famous film quotes.

Directors Ben Campbell, Simon Goodrick (TCM's creative director) and Adam James used 35mm and Phantom cameras to produce single-shot idents that were captured by Director of Photography Tim Green in super slow motion. The post-production for the idents were handled by The Mill Studio team who then used Final Cut Pro to edit and Nuke for the compositing. TCM also used the services of high speed camera and special effects company - Pirate. The general idea of the idents was to capture the elegance of cinema, featuring the genres of romance, action, sci-fi, western and thriller. The idents also featured a music track exclusively composed by the indie folk band - Noah and the Whale.

With the rebrand, TCM also launched a new website www.tcmuk.tv. The website featured film features, video clips and a weekly blog, alongside listings and one of the world's largest film databases.

To promote the rebrand, TCM launched a digital marketing campaign called Capture Your Classic, which invited viewers to upload recreations of five famous films scenes onto TCM's website.  The best user generated content was shown across a range of social networking sites. The celebrity fronted campaign will launch with two famous faces recreating an iconic film scene, alongside many hundreds of members of the public, taking place on July 12 at a central London location.

## TCM's Third Rebrand

On 4th September 2012, TCM HD (High Definition) launched in the UK and Ireland, with the HD feed's launch, also came another rebrand. The channel introduced a refreshed look across Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with idents produced by London motion design agency Flux. The idents were inspired by locations in classic Hollywood movies and filmed in over 30 locations, including Los Angeles, Route 66, Monument Valley, Arizona, and New York – where Alon Ziv and Chris Mansson of Flux worked with Turner’s sister production company th1ng/th2ng on a two-week shoot.

The idents feature a glass column transition that reflects the channel's logo. The ident's cinematic effect were designed by colourist Vince Narduzzo. The idents were then further enhanced in Maya and After Effects at Th1ng and in-house at TCM. Creative director of Turner Broadcasting, Simon Goodrick, commented: “We’ve been delighted with Flux’s previous work for TCM and they have again come up trumps with their work on this captivating new look for the channel.”

During the 2010's, some versions of TCMs ceased broadcasting in the European market. On 4th December 2013, TCM was no longer available in Portugal, as the Cartoon Network/TCM timeshared pan-feed was replaced with the launch of Cartoon Network Portugal which broadcast 24 hours a day.

On 1st January 2014, the TCM pan-feed ceased broadcasting in the Netherlands, on 1st June 2017, TCM ceased broadcasting in the Nordic market.  On 1st January 2016, the TCM pan-feed was split into two, MENA (Middle East and North Africa) which also serves Greece and Cyprus, and TCM Africa, which serves the sub-Saharan Africa market. On 21st September 2018, TCM Africa became TNT Africa, broadening its movie section to include more modern movies, including action movies. In October 2018, TCM relaunched in the Greek (and Cypriot) market with the channel added to the Cosmote TV service, with an HD version of TCM launching in January 2019.

## TCM UK's Final Rebrand

In 2018, TCM MENA moved away from the U.S. originated logo and went for a more modern look and a completely different logo, with an emphasis on the use of turquoise, black, gray, and white colours. The Middle East version of the TCM logo and its branding package was developed by Buenos Aires, Argentina based Negro Studio, and produced by Shred Creative Lab in India.

In 2019, Barcelona, Spain based design house - Wete Studio, under the art direction of Ignacio Gaubert and in-collaboration with TCM themselves, developed a new look and typeface for TCM in Europe, as well as a new logo utilising the new typeface. The goal of the new logo was to make a subtle change to the old logo that modernizes it and gives it a more actual and fresh look.

Initially the idea was not to drastically change the TCM logo but to make small modifications to it. As Wete Studio were working on new proposal they saw that they could take a step further and make something more different, but always maintaining the essence of the old logo. The new look was a departure from TCM's recent modern look, and reverted to a look that would fit in well in an early to mid-20th Century cinema with art deco architecture, in the same manner of TNT Classic Movies Europe's launch branding package. On 29th April 2019, TCM Spain announced the brand new graphics package and was the first TCM in Europe to use it.

On 2nd August 2019, TCM rebranded in the UK using the brand new Spain-originated graphics package, and the channel changed its name to the tautological name of TCM Movies. A month later, on 2nd September, TCM Cinema France rebranded using the same rebrand package as the UK and Spain. TCM MENA later rebranded with the new EMEA branding package.

## The Closure Of TCM UK

On 22nd June 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they will close TCM Movies UK on 6th July 2023, after nearly 24 years of broadcasting, and if including the history of its predecessor - TNT Classic Movies, it was the end of a classic movies legacy that lasted nearly thirty years on British television. TCM Movies UK announced that movies from their film library will instead air on the free-to-air channel Quest, available on Freeview, Freesat, Sky, and Virgin Media. Both WarnerMedia and Discovery merged in 2022 forming Warner Bros. Discovery, the company's UK assets were reviewed during a restructuring and consolidation process, and TCM was on the list of changes.

The final movie to air on TCM Movies in the UK is the appropriately titled "Murder Most Foul" (1964) which will air on Friday 7th July at 2.10am, however, it won't be the final programme to air on TCM UK, as the movie was followed by an episode of TCM Shorts: Off Set with Ben Miller. Then two episodes of Close Up, the first one is about Tom Cruise, and the final episode is about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Coincidently, the announcement came the same week when Turner Classic Movies in the United States was undergoing ruthless cost-cutting measures caused by Warner Bros. Discovery's controversial CEO and Chairman - David Zaslav, which saw the channel's general manager Pola Changnon made redundant. Other layoffs include SVP of Programming and Content Strategy Charles Tabesh, VP of Brand Creative and Marketing Dexter Fedor, VP of Enterprises and Strategic Partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy, and VP of Studio Production Anne Wilson. Michael Ouweleen, the president of Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Family and Boomerang became general manager of TCM. Due to future concerns of the channel, directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson called an emergency meeting with David Zaslav about the restructuring plans at the channel.

SVP of Programming and Content Strategy Charles Tabesh was later reinstated, and TCM became a shared responsibility, with Michael Ouweleen maintaining the business-side of TCM, with Warner Bros Motion Picture Group chairpeople Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy gaining creative control of the channel. TCM's future in the U.S. remains to be safe, but it is the end of the road for TCM in the UK and Ireland.

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