Contact WATCH TCM Support

by Selat

App for AppleTV no longer works and just opens to a blank black screen regardless of how many times I delete and reinstall the app, reboot the app, reboot my new and up to date (tvOS 17.2) AppleTV 4K with an active Xfinity cable subscription to TCM. I’ve reached out to TCM support and developers multiple times to report the problem and ask for assistance and I get the circular first tier “Are you logged in? Have you rebooted? Do you have a TCM subscription?” And other unhelpful questions that just repeat and clearly show they haven’t read or comprehend the issue or read the history of my problem and won’t take ownership of looking for or escalating a solution. The fact that the developer support link here goes to a customer service contact center and not actual technical support is clear that resolving app issues is not their goal. Supremely disappointing considering that the app is the only way I am able to access TCM as I have cut the cord and my Xfinity subscription is app based only so when channel apps like TCM’s don’t work, the $10 extra I pay for the package it is in is something I am now throwing away since I can no longer use it.

by SusieNotSusan

WatchTCM has been the only thing I’ve truly had to look forward to since I started quarantining over 2 months ago. I’ve always loved classic films and I’ve grown that love affair during this time, watching at least 1 film a day but often more. I use the app on my phone so that I can walk from my bedroom to my office to the kitchen without pausing. The app is the only thing marring my TCM experience. It crashes frequently if I pause a movie to answer a text or check an email, and most of the time clicking “resume” is pointless - I’m forced to drag the status bar to wherever I last remember I was in the movie because it won’t actually resume. God forbid I’m logged out for some reason; tonight my captions weren’t showing up (I keep captions on all the time) so I killed the app and restarted. Same problem. Thinking I needed an update, I came to the App Store to update. Of course then I was logged out and I have yet to be able to log in. The entire thing seems to be lagging and won’t let me sign in with my cable provider. I have excellent WiFi and I haven’t experienced this with any other app, streaming or otherwise. I come to WatchTCM for vintage films, not a disappointing and antiquated technological experience.

by Yngar10

Can't access anything because app says cable provider (DirecTV) doesn't allow access. Odd, because it did up until a few days ago, and nothing has changed on my end. None of the usual fixes work. Hopefully someone at TCM will read this and respond for the sake of all of us having the same problem again. Update: that problem went away through no apparent intervention by tcm or myself.

Now a new problem: no updates to “watch tcm” catalog for almost a week. I got a generic “thanks, we're doing our best to deal with your problem” email from tech. I see they told another reviewer to look for a fix to the zoom problem in a future update. Since the last update was 11 months (and who knows how many iOS updates) ago, I expect that eventually all the other movies will expire and we will be left to choose between “Cleopatra Jones” and a perverted Roger Daltrey disaster.

Having read some articles about David Zaslav, including ones ABOUT the GQ article he had taken down, I suspect he is behind this, and there will not be a fix for this or any other TCM app problem.