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While AT & T is eager to reduce its activities with the obvious goal of not resembling a giant monopoly media company that sucks the American public by relying on overvalued grants and data plans to stay afloat, difficult choices must be made. The latest is devastating for anyone who loves old movies. According to various sources, Warner Bros. Digital Network and Turner are launching FilmStruck, the Netflix streaming service for older movies. You may remember the acquisition of Turner, Warner Bros. and HBO by AT & T as part of a major operation in June.
FilmStruck, for the uninitiated, is a service that has allowed you to stream thousands of old movies and documentaries at a price lower than the price of Netflix. For old movie lovers, it was an absolute boon. Between the catalogs of Warner Bros., Turner and Criterion, FilmStruck had the largest library of old films available to the general public. There are films on the service that it is virtually impossible for the public to see in any other way: no VHS output, no readily available film reels and only the slightest chance of projection in MTC.
I'm not as old as the pirates of the first movie – who sold old reels when they were not involved in FBI attacks in the late '60s and early' 70s. Instead, I had the advantage of old movie stores with disintegrated VHS cassettes, eBay and a dynamic online community of collectors who could find, if not the hard copy of a movie, at least a digital archive copy. With FilmStruck, the need to collect and accumulate has rapidly decreased. I only had two dollars to pay and movies I spent literally years trying to find.
FilmStruck was also a great balm for weary film buffs in Netflix's ever-shrinking catalog of unrealized films by Netflix itself. This service was remarkable in its early days because it looked like every DVD ever printed. But now, the catalog is composed of recent great favorites and Netflix originals. Some are good, and most people probably prefer new releases, but moviegoers whose subscriptions over the years have been supported by Netflix tend to prefer variety. FilmStruck is for those of us who have been abandoned by Netflix for its net profit.
And now, we are abandoned again, apparently because, as vocal as we may be, there are not enough of us to make a streaming service of old movies viable: according to a statement released by Warner Bros.'s Variety. Digital Network and Turner, the company decided to remove the service because of its small audience. "Although FilmStruck has a very loyal fan base, it remains largely a niche service," the companies said. The statement goes on to suggest, in very professional language, that a type of service might appear in the distant future using the FilmStruck portfolio. "We plan to learn from FilmStruck's key lessons to help guide future business decisions in the consumer space and redirect that investment into our collective portfolios," the company said.
The FilmStruck service will end for subscribers beginning November 29, 2018.
So what's left if you want to watch an old melodrama or a silly musical? Not much. The Criterion channel has left Hulu for FilmStruck and will soon be homeless.
In a statement to subscribers, Criterion said:
When we launched Criterion Channel in 2016, we had two goals: to ensure that our entire streaming library remains available and to address our audience in our own voice. We are proud of the work we have accomplished, providing neat programming and a full range of additional features in the streaming space, advocating for a wide range of filmmakers beyond our collection and creating a original content that invites you to exciting discussions about film culture.
All of this is very new and we will keep you informed as we learn more details. But be assured that we are always committed to restoring and preserving the best of world cinema and making it known to you in every way possible.
So I hope. he will be able to conclude an agreement with another service. Hulu and Netflix both made aggressive acquisitions this year. It is expected that Disney and Apple will launch streaming services next year, which would be an excellent base for Criterion. The rest of the WB and Turner catalogs (and as a Criterion collector, those are the ones that interest me the most) will remain lost in the immediate future.
According to the statement issued by the companies, AT & T could create another streaming service in the future, including these catalogs, which corresponds to an announcement announced earlier this month that it plans to launch a service aimed at to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime. Presumably, this is the new home for these classic movies.
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