Saturday, October 10, 2015

More box guide fun

My set-top box guide is showing FXM Retro as airing something called "Secrets of Car Thieves" tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. The guide has no information on the movie, which is of course unsurprising since that's not what's going to be airing. Apparently there was a 2001 TV documentary from New Zealand with that title, but Fox wouldn't have the rights to anything like that, would they?

So I had to go to FXM's online schedule to find out what's running. The movie showing is, it turns out, Seven Thieves, one of those early 1960s heist films that I have to admit to not having seen in quite a few years, not since the last go-round of showings on FXM whenever that was.

But at any rate I'd rather make some comments about FXM's web site. Or, rather, the lack of a web site. FXM is under the FX Networks banner, as Fox is trying to make their channels all be of one brand, I guess. FX is the "regular" channel; FXM is supposed to be for movies, and FXX was conceived as "extreme", with that being marketing-speak for I don't know what since the channel seems to have morphed pretty quickly into FX2. Somehow I don't think Shrek Forever After qualifies as "extreme".

The schedules only run a week in advance, and when you select a different date the schedule immediately defaults to the FX schedule. The mobile version didn't seem to have anyway to find other airings of a selected program, either. So for all the problems I have with TCM's site (I don't have the app on my phone, and they don't have a non-app mobile version), things could always be worse.

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