[New Look to Schedule for TCMProgrammer]

> You mean the online webpage is going to be updated when someone

> dies and the schedule changes? You're dreaming...they only

> tell you the day before or the same day it will change.

 

That's my point. Rather than dealing with a possibly out-of-date, definitely multi-page, e-mailed schedule, I sign on every day and look at that day's up-to-date schedule. (This takes about 5 seconds.) At present, what I get on that schedule is a list of movies titles and times: no synposis, no director, no cast list. If I want any of that information, I have to go to additional pages to find the info. My question is why did they remove all that info from the (formerly) perfectly fine schedule page? Who thought that giving users less information in one place was a good idea?

 

I'm all for the idea of users of the e-mail schedule getting a schedule that is useful to them. My question is: Why can't users of the on-line daily schedule get a schedule that is useful to them? The old schedule format was useful; the new one is much less so.

 

P.S. I think the graphic on the daily schedule page is supposed to represent a train station...but does anyone else think it looks like a prison yard? I think it's the grid on the windows on the right side that does it to me...

[New Look to Schedule for TCMProgrammer]

Kevin,

 

I'm on-line virtually all the time--laptop on a table here by the sofa, cable internet connection, so it's fast.

 

I'm used to pulling down the bookmark to "TCM Schedule" and having one page appear in a second or two: a list of all the movies that day, director, short cast list, short description of the movie. All there, without my having to go to any other page--or, as it stands now, pages--to get that information.

 

This is vastly preferable to launching the e-mail software, hunting through many folders to find a TCM folder, finding the right e-mail (among the many newsletters and other TCM e-mails--and how come the "monthly" newsletter comes more than once a month?), then hunting through a multipage(?) e-mail schedule for that day's movies. (And hoping no celebrity has died recently, resulting in schedule changes that won't be on the e-mail.)

 

(Since I've never seen an e-mailed monthly schedule, I don't know what the format's like. I just know it doesn't seem sensible to have to hunt through a long schedule when I only want to see 1/30th of it. Or 1/31st. Or whatever.)

 

I don't mind a redesigned Web site. I really don't. But I don't see the advantage of providing less information for users. Ideally, the day's schedule ought to have enough information to be useful to viewers. I'm a very "basic" schedule user: I'm not worried about time zones (I'm Eastern), Canada-vs-US listings, precise runtimes, etc. I just want to know what's on when, who's in it, and what's it about...and I can no longer get that very basic information on the daily schedule page. When my local newspaper gives more detail about TCM's schedule than TCM's schedule page does, there's something wrong.

[New Look to Schedule for TCMProgrammer]

> ... I assume that the TCM email program guide will still be emailed every month in the same format? As long as that is available and anyone can still subscribe to it I see no reason why anyone would complain. It is my experience in management though that people hate change because it requires them to adjust to something new and perhaps challenging.

 

I haven't subscribed to the e-mail program guide in the past. Why should I have to open e-mail software and locate an old e-mail to see the schedule instead of going to a single schedule page to find useful information? Besides that, TCM occasionally modifies the schedule when a Hollywood figure dies; an out-of-date e-mailed schedule is useless then.

 

As for "new and perhaps challenging"-- Having to click into 15 different pages to get the information I used to get on one page isn't "challenging". I can think of a lot of other words for it, but I'll limit myself to "frustrating." (And who wants a "challenging" program guide? Wouldn't a "useful" one be more desirable?)

 

There have been comments here that the monthly schedule will be fixed to add the missing information of cast, director, synopsis, run-times, etc. But I haven't seen any suggestions that the one-page schedule--the schedule you get when you click "Schedule" at the top of the page--is going to revert to its formerly useful self. This is extremely frustrating to this long-time user. I may go back to using the lame grids in the newspaper's TV listings. The paper's grids, at least, list an actor or two.

[New Look to Schedule for TCMProgrammer]

Regarding the daily program schedule...

 

Who decided that giving viewers less information on one page would be helpful or appreciated?

 

(It doesn't help matters that my December Now Playing went astray, so I have no schedule for TCM except what I get from the Web site. And three e-mails about the schedule have netted me nothing but three automated replies.)

 

I used to be able to pop over to the TCM schedule (using a bookmark in my Favorites folder; FWIW, the bookmark no longer works--new URL--so that's changing now, too)...anyway, I used to pop over to the schedule, see a list of the day's movies--with a quick synopsis, director, and star info--and plan what I wanted to watch from that. Now, except for the four movies at the bottom of the page (and I seldom get to watch in primetime), I get no information that might make me want to watch one of the movies listed.

 

Surely no one thought that giving viewers less information was a good idea...