[This is awful]

"I would guess that the showing of LOTR last night was probably in the top 10 for ratings since it was commercial free and it is a very popular film. In order for TCM to survive I expect they need to boost ratings every now and then so doing movies that are more current may be necessary for the health of the channel."

 

They didn't show LOTR to "boost ratings", this month is Oscar month and it received 11 Academy Awards in 2004: Academy Award for Best Picture, Directing, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Song, Visual Effects, Art Direction, Costume Design, Make-up, Sound Mixing and Film Editing.

[What just happened to A Star is Born?]

Since TCM shares resources with TNT, TBS and Peachtree TV, my guesstimate is they probably have a centralized video server somewhere in the building (they resemble those giant supercomputers in size, with hard drive racks). This is no different with how multiple TV stations owned by one company (even in different states) share video resources. It's a relatively no-brainer way to operate even for small and medium sized TV markets. Stations that might be owned by the same company but located in different parts of the country share video resources by high speed fiber optic backbones.

 

The same is being done in radio, whether it's two stations sharing the same building or two stations located in different parts of the country (Sirius and XM being a good example, another being the Clear Channel owned stations).

 

I worked at a cable access TV channel in the late 1980's and they were automated to a certain extent. We were still using Beta and VHS, but if the tapes were cued up just right in the right machines (a dozen tape decks all numbered) no one watching at home would have noticed that the whole operation was automated.