Warner Archive Instant is folding, and it proves one thing

I complained for months about the total lack of attention Warner Archive Instant's operators give it, and now we know why it has been running in fumes: Warner is giving up on it, shuttering the SVOD service that never really caught on and transferring its resources (and subscribers) to Filmstruck, which will now have a TCM Select selection and more classic Hollywood films.

As a Filmstruck subscriber (now), this is great. The service has more content for the same price, and it has Golden Age of Hollywood content that I wished it had at launch. However, allow me to throw a little cold water on the euphoric reaction this move got on social media. Yeah, it's great to see TCM Select on Filmstruck, but so far it looks like a lot of stuff I already have on DVD.

As a Warner Archive Instant subscriber, I am disappointed that the rare content on that service is apparently abandoned. I'm also a little worried at the falsehood we are already being given about all of the movies on Warner Archive Instant being on Filmstruck. Almost none of the movies I had in my watchlist are on Filmstruck. Maybe that's coming.

The big problem for me is, what is going to happen to all the TV shows? WAI has showcased many obscure and forgotten series in its short run, and many of them still are not on Warner Archive DVDs. Some of them, like my beloved Eight Is Enough and Dr. Kildare, are complete in super-expensive collections from WA. But what if someone wants to sample a series without having to pay big bucks for a complete season?

I'd love to see Hulu purchase streaming rights to some of this material, but I am not counting on it.  Here is a sampling of the vintage TV programs I enjoyed on WAI that are not available anywhere else: The Jimmy Stewart Show, Harry O (at least those two have been on TV), Search, The Eleventh Hour, The Man from Atlantis, A Man Called Shenandoah, The Practice (1970s Danny Thomas sitcom), Flo...and many more. I didn't see anyone talking about this yesterday, and I'm not surprised. It looks like the death of WAI was a self-inflicted one, as it was never available on many platforms, it was never fully supported, and it quickly fell by the wayside as subscribers realized not only was it not the TCM on Demand people  hoped it would be, but it wasn't updated regularly despite a premium cost (10 bucks a month when Netflix and Hulu were still cheaper).

I wanted to see more content and a better user interface, but I was OK with what WAI was, mainly because of the more obscure stuff that found its way on there. I think some of the movies will show up, but what about the TV? This whole thing proves that vintage television is an afterthought, and there aren't enough people who care (or who perceive that people care) to make it matter in today's streaming video landscape.

Just like some of us have lamented the lack of a TCM for television, now we can once again lack the lack of a Netflix for old TV. Filmstruck caters to the classic film lover, but what about the history of the small screen--the obscure, the short-lived, the unseen? Hulu will continue to carry the big shows of the past, but where are we gonna get the likes of Sam Benedict and Beyond Westworld?