I really think the pendulum is about to swing back to classic movies, this station in particular. People are discovering these movies for the first time b/c they weren't very accessible even 15-20 years ago. I once heard a story on TCM about Cary Grant not being recognized by a 'celebrity-seeker' on the streets of Hollywood during the 80's. It's b/c there's never been a medium for these movies -- until NOW.
And I did some research on DC's "Little Fugitive (1953)" and found it's been regarded as one of the pioneering works in the "New Wave" movement. Director Abrashkin died from Lou Gehrig's disease at Coney Island during the making of the film.
What TCM was, in the pre-Netflix/DVD era, was a niche channel which was a great resource for movie buffs to watch classic films, and other unseen/underseen productions, that wasn't shown on television anywhere at the time.
More such niche channels, like BRAVO! and AMC, eventually abandon their original aims in favor of ratings and more advertizement money, and now those two air the same shit, same movies, etc. Remember, BRAVO! once was an arty movie channel (airing French New Wave pictures, etc.) and AMC of course was TCM before TCM, showing old classics without commercial breaks.
But TCM has stuck to its original mission: Widescreen if possible, no cuts, no fucking breaks, an ever expanded library, and specials/themes that actually clue in people to other aspects of cinema that people usually forget or ignore, like the depictions by Hollywood throughout the decades on blacks, gays, hispanics, Asians, etc.
Take a documentary I watched of theirs some weeks back, about the Walt Disney live action movies of the 1950s/1960s. I must admit, that whole topic didn't appeal to me at all, but I watched because nothing else was on. Instead I was quite intrigued and captivated by that fascinating background on how Disney got involved with nature documentaries, later live-action productions like 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (they were cheaper than animation, and quicker to film), and indeed that expanded profit quota is how we got eventually Disneyland, and the supposed Walt Disney "brandname."
This is why TCM kicks ass. Plus, Robert Osbourne is such an easing, grandfatherly presence, he's an icon to movie nerds.
You gotta love that! 
