Not streaming near you: FilmStruck’s failure and the demise of the cinema-specific model

ABSTRACT

This article charts the rise and fall of FilmStruck – Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Criterion Collection’s cinema-specific streaming service. Despite its premier specialty film catalog (e.g., art-house, international, independent, and classic cinema) and loyal fans, WarnerMedia shuttered the service in 2018 – after two years in business. This article argues that FilmStruck’s demise revealed the limitations of cinema-specific models and the precarious status of specialty cinema in the streaming sector. Specifically, this article analyzes FilmStruck’s curation in relation to TCM and Criterion Collection’s respective cable programming and physical media practices. Doing so reveals that FilmStruck’s founders and professionals endeavored to reconfigure specialty cinema’s meanings and reaffirm the values of film-oriented practices in the streaming context. Ultimately, by historically situating FilmStruck’s trajectory and strategies within larger institutional contexts, this article illuminates modest, yet nonetheless important struggles over business models, cultural value, media specificity, and professional identities in the tumultuous 2010s-era streaming landscape.

KEYWORDS:

• Streaming
• specialty cinema
• digital distribution
• platforms
• curation
• media industries
• FilmStruck
• Turner Classic Movies
• criterion collection

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Alisa Perren (University of Texas, Austin) and the reviewers for their thoughtful and in-depth evaluations of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Major

Anne Majoris an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Young Harris College. She holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Major’s primary research interests involve film and television industries, streaming, and digital media culture. Her work has been published in Moving Image Journal and The Projector: A Journal on Film, Media, and Culture.