To begin this State of the Blog Address, I would like to thank those of you who participated in the TMP Reader Survey posted last week. Your responses were, at times, surprising, and very helpful to me in thinking of the blog’s future!

I’ll be sharing the survey results today as well as making a few little announcements regarding what these responses mean for TMP. (This post is more for myself than anyone else — to keep an easily-accessible record of the survey responses when I inevitably forget my SurveyMonkey password and can no longer review their analysis, haha.)

Q1. HOW OFTEN DO YOU VISIT TMP?
Q2. DO YOU ENJOY TMP’S DAILY POST FORMAT?

Much to my surprise, half of the respondents said that they visit TMP on a daily basis! I didn’t realize I had so many daily readers. As most bloggers will tell you, the majority of blog views come from search engines, with a smaller core of daily or weekly devotees depending on the blog’s schedule. All but one survey respondent reported visiting TMP at least once a week, so that’s great news for me — the daily schedule (which I realize is much more frequent than most classic movie blogs) is not going to waste.

Speaking of that daily posting schedule, a majority of respondents said that they don’t read every single TMP post, but do like having so many options of what to read, and don’t feel overwhelmed by seeing new posts every day. A few respondents, however, did note a struggle to keep up with TMP’s hefty weekly load of content. I think I’d like to strike a happy medium and cut down to five posts per week. This won’t be happening for a while, though, as I’d like to keep up the daily posting through 2016 to celebrate TMP’s fifth year of existence.

Q3. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE TMP FEATURES?

The results of question three were extremely surprising to me. Apparently, your favorite posts are regular ol’ classic film reviews. I’m glad you like ’em, because that seems to be what I’m posting the most of lately! Other high-scoring features were “One year, one film” (another surprise — I didn’t think anyone liked these as much as I like writing them!), reviews of period films, and “Favorite things about…” (no surprise there).

“One year, one film” has always been intended as a limited series and will end once I reach the year 1965, but since you all seem to enjoy these posts, I would like to preserve the format. I haven’t thought up a title for the series yet, but I’ll definitely carry on the “recommendation level – brief review – contemporary reviews” format on a weekly or bi-weekly basis after “One year, one film” ends.

I’m also planning on bringing “Favorite things about…” posts in more frequently by making it a monthly feature. The first Friday of each month (or second Friday, if the 1st of the month — aka monthly wrap-up day — falls on a Friday) beginning in April will be “Favorite things” Friday.

Q4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GENRE OF FILM TO READ ABOUT?

This question was just asked out of curiosity, but I thought it’d be fun to report the results here. (As much as I like to give the people what they want, I am definitely a “mood viewer” and watch films of a certain genre based on how I’m feeling at the moment, so I’m not going to guarantee a certain number of reviews per month from a particular genre.)

Here are your collective favorite genres. (More than one option could be selected, which is why these don’t round out to a 100% total.)

Mystery/Suspense – 80%
Comedy – 67%
Drama – 47%
Science Fiction – 47%
Horror – 40%
Western – 33%
Romance – 27%

Q5. DID YOU ENJOY THE WEEKLY “WHAT TO WATCH”/”TMP RECOMMENDS” TCM RECOMMENDATION POSTS?

More surprising results for this question. I stopped making these posts because I felt like no one found them useful. The survey revealed that nearly half of the respondents liked the “TMP Recommends” format of five film recommendations, with a synopsis for each. However, the other half said they didn’t like TCM recommendation posts, mostly due to lack of access to the US version of TCM. Since most of you readers do like seeing recommendations, I’ve decided on a blended “TMP Recommends” post, every other Sunday (alternating Sundays with “One year, one film”). The post will include TWO recommendations from US TCM and TWO streaming recommendations from Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, or Warner Archive Instant. I’ll include DVD links for all four films if available, as well. Each selected film will be accompanied by a synopsis. Like “Favorite things Friday,” this will begin in April.

Q6. DO YOU LIKE READING EXCERPTS FROM VINTAGE MAGAZINES?

This is another thing that I assumed no one enjoyed, even though I greatly enjoy writing the magazine posts. An overwhelming 86% of respondents said that they would like to see both film-related excerpts and other stories from my vintage mag collection. Ask and you shall receive — I’m going to start incorporating these once or twice a month, rather than once every couple of months.

Q7. WOULD YOU READ REVIEWS OF NEWER FILMS (1970 AND LATER) IF THEY WERE PUBLISHED ON TMP?

The vote on this was split between “Yes, but only if published rarely” and “Yes, I would like to see more of these reviews.” I think I’ll just sort of go with the flow on this one depending on what I’ve been watching in a particular month, setting a general boundary of once or twice a month, but no more. The monthly “modern movies” wrap-ups will continue in addition to these full reviews… but that still means only three days per month max dedicated to post-’70 films, so those of you who come here for classic content can simply skip those posts, while still having plenty of reading material to enjoy.

Q8. DO YOU LIKE READING ABOUT CLASSIC TELEVISION ON TMP?

I’ve been watching a lot of classic television lately — game shows, anthologies, Gilligan’s Island. About 80% of respondents said they’d like to see another “Recap and React” series or some other type of classic TV content now and then. I really would like to do more “Classic Stars on the Small Screen” posts (talking about classic film stars who appeared on TV or worked behind the camera — like Ida Lupino, who directed a few episodes of Gilligan!), and am working on choosing a series to cover in “Recap and React” style. I had a blast covering The Dick Van Dyke Show and just need to find another series that I can get my hands on in its entirety before starting a new “R&R.” On my shelf I have the completed collections of Gidget (Sally Field version) and Gilligan’s Island, so let me know if you’d be interested in seeing an R&R for either one of those.

This has been one heck of a ramble and I said above, I’m writing it more for myself than anyone else, to keep track of what I’d like to do here on the blog. To recap, I’ve decided on:

  • Knocking two days off of the schedule in 2017
  • Continuing the “One year, one film” format after the series wraps up
  • “Favorite things about…” on the first Friday of each month
  • Bi-weekly recommendation posts, beginning in April, featuring two TCM recommendations and two streaming recommendations
  • Vintage mag excerpts 1-2 times per month
  • Full reviews of post-1970 films 1-2 times per month
  • A new “Recap and React” series (to be determined) and more frequent additions to the “Classic Stars on the Small Screen” series