Te l e v i s i o n
TALKING PICTURES TV Gustav Temple spoke to Sarah Cronin-Stanley about the television channel she launched six years ago with her father Noel Cronin, which now reaches 3.5 million viewers a week
W
hat you’re doing is wonderful! I find it almost impossible to find classic black and white movies on any of the popular platforms, which don’t seem to value the origins of modern cinema. Was this why you founded Talking Pictures TV? Our target audience doesn’t have access to Netflix, Amazon or BritBox. I know this because I think we’re one of the only channels in the world that has a direct relationship with its viewers. A lot of them don’t even have Internet access, so we’re taking them back to a time when they just wanted to watch the telly, and they can watch Talking Pictures TV on Freeview, Sky, Virgin or FreeSat. The schedules are devised by Noel every day, to ensure that there is a variety of drama, horror, pathos, comedy etc. We wanted to reintroduce the idea of the family sitting down and watching a film together, like the Saturday Morning Picture show.
Who founded the channel? It’s me, my father Noel, my husband Neil and Archie, my son. We founded the channel six years ago. And do you really run it from a shed in your garden? Well, it isn’t quite a shed, more of an extension, but it certainly isn’t a great big glass building in Soho. What sort of equipment do you have to use to produce the channel? There’s a screening machine, so Noel can watch the old 16-mil and 35-mil film, a live broadcast of the channel on a monitor, three desks and three phones, and that’s it! Are you continually adding titles to your list and how do you acquire said titles? The whole reason why we were able to launch is because we own a library of film rights, under Renowned Pictures, our 20-year-old sister company.
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