Talking Pictures TV turns 9!

Talking Pictures TV beating British Broadcasters!

"Today marks 9 years since #TPTV first started broadcasting! We’ve come a long way. Dad & I can’t quite believe it. We thank our viewers for your unwavering support. It’s your support spreading the word that keeps the projectors rolling (and keeps Bob in a job!).”

It is Talking Pictures TV’s 9^th birthday today, they’ve broken the mould in broadcasting focusing on classic cinema, TV and home videos.  At a time when broadcasters are struggling after over ordering during the pandemic with freelancers either having to reduce their rates for work, find jobs outside the industry as an interim or leave it altogether whilst Talking Pictures TV goes from strength to strength.

Granted Talking Pictures TV is an archive channel but it has renewed interest in cinema and TV whilst terrestrial channels turn their backs on their own back catalogues. TPTV see its value, they’ve found a market where no one else were taking advantage of, with the closest thing being TCM, which is possibly on the chopping block!  The value of TPTV is that it has even influenced other channels to show older films which can be seen with BBC and Channel 4 trying to catch up to attract TPTV viewers.

Talking Pictures TV is the antipathy of an British ‘eccentric’ having a bash! Created by Noel Cronin along with his daughter Sarah it is an archetype of an Cottage Industry a family business which began in 2015, running a DVD Club ‘Renown Films’ they decided to start a television channel.  Cronin has been in the industry working at Rank, De Lea and even started his own distribution company DD Films; I remember their VHS of Channel 4’s TV series Commando.  Cronin bought up unwanted B movies he has curated an archive of films that would otherwise have been thrown into a skip or left to decay!

What TPTV has also done is bring about a community with viewer participation through open contact with the channel whether through email, letters or even calls!!! I’m still waiting on a reply from ITV whilst TPTV’s replies are immediate!  TPTV have garnered seventy seven thousand followers on twitter, have an accompanying podcast as well as movie festivals at classic cinemas and this year a Frank Marker location tour in Windsor, even a newly printed annual magazine, but to cap it all they have a free catch up service with their SvOD TPTV Encore! So whilst other broadcasters reduce their viewership TPTV increase it via any and every format.

They have brought TV series’ back for new and old viewers such as Budgie, Fireball XL5, Worzel Gummidge, Stingray, Dixon of Dock Green, Hazel, Public Eye! Not content with British and American cinema and TV unafraid of foreign language cinema broadacating Jour de fête & La bataille du rail (1946) as well as Bruno Cremer’s Maigret. Their taste is eclectic there is something for everyone with their weekly Wild West films Wednesday’s Saddle Up , Friday night horrors Cellar Club with Caroline Munroe and with no children’s tv on the weekends TPTV have accommodated with Saturday Morning Pictures.     

It is an unusual channel as TPTV has evolved from films and tv series to curated archive showing home movies through The Footage Detectives hosted by Cronin alongside DJ Mike Read as well as information films, Cronin having working at CoI; they’re effectively preserving social history, showing footage of steam trains, planes, cars and even architecture that disappeared sometime ago by either the Luftwaffe or developers. TPTV are preserving a form of ‘reel social history’ not done so before by a broadcaster.

Broadcasters BBC, ITV and Channel could learn from Neil and Sarah, they have seen the value of archive rather than let it sit and go stale they have decided to bring these gems to light.  Broadcasters do not seem to see the same value or even the monetisation of their back catalogues.  Will be showing Adam West’s Batman series beginning of June [2024]. With TPTV’s broad church of visual delights will only allow them to expand in the future and here’s to many more!