Should HBO be more like Netflix?

AT&T sure thinks so ...

HBO headquarters.
(Image credit: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo)

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"Change is coming to HBO," said Edmund Lee and John Koblin at The New York Times. The "crown jewel" of AT&T's recent $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner, and the home of critical hits such as The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and Westworld, HBO has an unparalleled track record of winning "endless Emmys while generating billions in profit," largely by focusing on "quality over quantity." But leaked audio from a recent New York staff meeting hosted by John Stankey, the veteran AT&T executive overseeing the newly christened Warner Media, revealed that the telecom does not intend to be "a passive corporate parent." Stankey told staffers that HBO must shift away from creating boutique, high-gloss productions that take years to develop, and think "more like a streaming giant" — namely, Netflix. HBO needs to be "bigger and broader," Stankey suggested, and it will have to substantially increase the number of shows it makes, so that it can attract more viewers and increase engagement. To drive home his point, Stankey said he wanted to count not how many hours viewers watched per week, but how many "hours a day." The directives neatly sum up AT&T's corporate worldview, in which companies "gobble up the market until all competitors are vanquished," said Rhett Jones at Gizmodo. In Stankey's mind, consumer preferences exist to be endlessly diced up and monetized across platforms, "and hey, if some people like the show with the dragons, that's fine, too."

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