Turner Classic Movies was built because Ted Turner bought classics and ran them on TV.

It inspired kids like myself, seeing classics for the first time, to eventually find themselves in the editing room of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Paul Thomas Anderson.

As of June 28, 2023, Jennifer Maas writes for Variety, TCM will now be curated by all three of these cinephile legends.

Right in front of people who thought he lost big, Ted Turner made a huge bet on the library.

Lew Wasserman did something similar in 1958, when MCA paid $10 million for Paramount’s library of pre-1948 films - about 700 titles that many people called “worthless” at the time.

Within a week, MCA made $30 million for TV airing of “oldies.” For decades, the library profited on this newfangled heavy device in our living rooms, and bedrooms, called a “television” or TV.

Or a tablet. Or a smartphone. Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR).

Of course, now you can even shoot and digitize your family’s home movies, to play on TVs. (74)

ACTION POINT: Always value the library. Consider remakes.