Turner Classic Movies will mark its 30th anniversary on April 14 with on-air programming saluting TCM staffers who have been at the cable network since the beginning.
The network will also run a 24-hour marathon of films with historical introductions from TCM’s first host, Robert Osborne.
The films will include An American in Paris and Gone With the Wind.
Every Thursday in April, TCM hosts Dave Karger, Alicia Malone and Ben Mankiewicz will welcome legacy TCM employees as guest programmers. The employees range from TCM’s first president to one of its early teleprompter operators.
TCM will also air a short film featuring interviews with 15 TCM veterans who helped develop and launch the channel.
“How many other channels on television celebrate their anniversary? How many other channels’ fans know where they were the day a network launched?” TCM primetime host Ben Mankiewicz said. “I’m not sure either of those things are true without Robert Osborne. He’s the Walter Cronkite of TCM. The Johnny Carson. The Alex Trebek. With these intros of Robert's, we’re celebrating his impact and his continued influence. Plus, as we do with the movies we show, we’ll put Robert into context. Additionally, we’ll also look back to those early years and get the perspectives and experiences of the early TCM staffers who helped shaped the legacy of the channel.”
Hollywood heavyweights showed up for TCM when parent company Warner Bros. Discovery looked to take an axe to the channel last year.
WBD released several of TCM’s main executives and two weeks later, CEO David Zaslav got a call from directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson urging him to preserve the channel.
Zaslav later put creative programming and development control for TCM under Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group executives Michael de Luca and Pam Abdy.
