Comcast moves TCM to sports package, angers subscribers

Comcast last Friday moved Turner Classic Movies to its Sports Entertainment add-on package, a move that angered several subscribers expecting the channel to remain in the base package.

Comcast explained the move of TCM as part of the company’s regular review of lineups meant to maintain enough programming variety while also providing enough value. The company said TCM didn’t make the cut.

“Viewership of TCM is low, as over 90% of our customers watch less than two movies per month. Given this and contractual limitations on offering TCM a la carte, we decided to move TCM to the Sports Entertainment Package, which will help us manage programming costs that are passed on to our customers while continuing to make the channel available to those who want to watch it,” Comcast wrote on its website.

Comcast also said that while moving TCM won’t result in a price reduction for its Xfinity TV packages, it will “help reduce the speed at which they go up.”

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Regardless of Comcast’s reasoning for moving TCM, the company’s subscribers flocked to the Xfinity forums to complain. The primary complaint from subscribers has been the extra $9.99 per month they would have to pay to add the Sports Entertainment package to continue watching TCM.

The move to shift over TCM comes shortly after Comcast made another change to its lineup, replacing Cinemax with Hitz, the company’s own movie channel. Comcast’s logic for removing Cinemax was based on redundancy.

“While Cinemax is being removed from these packages, we believe the new lineup offers a better value. Most of the movies on Cinemax have also aired on HBO. By offering Hitz instead, we’ll be delivering a better variety of content,” the company wrote.

Comcast is also rumored to be removing Starz and Starz Encore from its primary video service bundle at the end of the year.