WarnerMedia jumped the news Friday of a major internal reshuffling, which translates to the departure of WarnerMedia Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt and HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly, and the increases of Warner Bros. Chief Ann Sarnoff and HBO programmers Guru Casey Bloys. The company also created a new HBO Max business unit, putting general manager Andy Forssell – who worked alongside WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar after Kilar founded Hulu – at his helm.
In a memo, Kilar stressed the importance of newly launched direct-to-consumer platform HBO Max for the general business and said the structural changes are designed to help WarnerMedia operate more efficiently and effectively.
Below is a condensed conversation with Kilar, who is talking to Variation shortly after the announcement was made to break down what it all means:
With Andy Forssell – who, like you, was also at Hulu in the early years – now at the helm of the new business unit HBO Max operation, what it means for the streaming platform and there will be a difference in how is it running?
He was quite one of the key architects of what I call top-notch streaming. This goes back to 2007, when most people enjoyed streaming services, whether it was what would become Hulu or Netflix at the time. And so that’s the background of Andy Forssell, whom I cannot overstate the importance of him as an architect and business leader in the context of Hulu.
As far as material changes are concerned, there are two changes that I will highlight among some of them. No. 1 is that he will report directly to me as his organization under him, which of course is a change. And that, of course, sends a very strong signal, both internally and externally, about the importance of direct to consumer in the future. That is one change.
The other change, which is just as important, is the global outreach of HBO Max, also under Andy now … It is very important in our future that we go global, that we not only go directly to consumer, but also worldwide go … There’s a fantastic executive named Johannes Larcher who has actually taken both Hulu and other over-the-top services to international locations. And John will report to Andy in that role.
Seeing these changes, will changing your subscription and sales goals for HBO Max change your watch internationally?
Sorry, are you trying to sign me up for new songs? [Laughs.] Without talking about whole numbers, my team’s ambitions for the opportunity with this structure are certainly quite large, as it should be. And I say that in response to consumer demand. There are people who tweet me all the time who are in Portugal or Spain, or Latin America, or where they clearly want HBO Max. It is our job to take it to them.
Now that Casey Bloys is at the forefront of programming for HBO, HBO Max and the Turner networks, how do you see the originals of HBO and HBO Max being further tuned under his leadership?
I think it makes it a lot simpler. Make no mistake, this is a vote of confidence in Casey, who I feel very good about making, seeing his history. I mean, I think he has more Emmy nominations than I have here. That this is someone I have admired from afar. It’s such a gift to do it next to her.
And so it makes things simpler. Because Casey obviously has so much activity between his team that this allows him to make very quick decisions about an HBO sensitivity, an HBO Max original sensitivity, and then of course TNT and TBS. And Casey has a long history in programming that is outside of HBO.
That this is someone who is incredibly talented at programming to various sensibilities. And that’s what I’m so excited about – is that Casey and his newly expanded team will really be able to program for many different sensitivities. Of course, he will probably always be known for HBO, because that’s an incredibly powerful sensitivity when you look at it from a sector perspective, but we also have a lot of other sensitivities in this world, in terms of DC, the material and also types of brands and franchises. and apparently original IP that we now pipeline.
Should we expect further changes at Warner Bros., like any restructuring of film and TV studios under Ann Sarnoff?
At a header level, no. Because this is really our move to bring together some two different studios and content organizations and bring them together as one, and the changes we’re making with Casey are most striking. That you should expect nothing, of course, that we are talking about today. I never want to imagine that every organization on the planet is calcified, and plucked and frozen. That embarrasses us if we are not constantly advancing as an organism, but no, you should not expect major changes.
What have been your conversations with AT&T CEO John Stankey about the direction for WarnerMedia from here?
When John and I started talking about WarnerMedia, and this was even before I signed up, I see this as Chapter Two of what was kind of a very clear Chapter One that John put in its place. When AT&T bought WarnerMedia, John did what I think is the most important earthquake in WarnerMedia’s story, that is – there were three distinct companies between Turner, HBO and Warner Bros.
What John did was very earthquake, to break down those walls and those silos and really introduce the idea of one company, that is WarnerMedia. And I’m so grateful for the work he does, because it’s the hardest work, and most importantly, more sincere, because it’s the foundation. And so what I do in chapter two of that, is that our focus is stricter, so that we can historically go from a wholesale company, like all media companies have been for the last hundred years, and really move into the future, becoming a consumer company … that means going straight to the consumer and going global.
I do not mean to suggest that we are not already worlds today. We have a lot of income that is outside the US. But when I talk about going global, I think the chances are that we could have 70% or more of our customers and our revenue outside the US. – and that is really a change from where we are today.
Given your background in Silicon Valley, what philosophy do you bring with you from your Hulu days through the present? It certainly seems very precise, what you knew and what you did at Hulu in 2007, versus the sector’s focus on streaming now.
Thanks so much for the question, because it’s dim … I think one of the things that’s so important to WarnerMedia and how I think about it, is a few things. Number One, we need to start with the customer [and] what do we do to serve them?
At the end of the day, what we are trying to do is try to move the world through stories. We try to move consumers through stories, and I think when we start there. And then ask ourselves, how can we do the best job we can in terms of storytelling, interactive storytelling … and then work our way back, that’s when the magic happens, because of a better expression . And that’s one thing I bring to the table, which is a very, very concentrated orientation and sensitivity.
The other thing I hope to be able to bring to the team – I think it’s very important that we feel empowered to take risks in serving customers. And if you take risks, there is a natural inevitability that you will fail a lot. Because when you take risks, you know you’re experimenting, and not all experiments are going the way you want. That I want to empower this team, act bravely, draw in the future, take risks … know that, yes, sometimes we will fall. But I believe in the fullness of time, seeing how talented this team is, that we will do great work for clients.
The internet, I think, is the greatest great gift that could be given to any media company. Because what the internet allows you to do is go directly to consumers across the planet, and media companies for the last hundred years have never had this opportunity. And that’s why I’m so excited about our chance to do that, but it means we have to do two things. We need to be consumer oriented. And we must be willing to take risks and believe in the future.
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic, we have seen Universal, and this week Disney, make decisions about windowing and posting movies directly to streaming. I wonder what you think about it, given the ongoing pandemic that at this stage has no clear return to normalcy.
It’s a great question. As you can imagine, of course, I spend a lot of time with medical experts, trying to get as close as possible to where the pandemic is heading – vaccines, research and all that other stuff.
I would say a few things. I think all the time, we’ll be going back to sports stadiums, we’ll be back in theaters, we’ll be back in restaurants. I think that will happen – it’s a question of when and in what countries and what cities and towns, because I think it’s going to be really very surgical in terms of the differences.
So I believe that … because we are human and we are resistance and we solve these problems together. The second thing is: Does the presence of a pandemic do things that cause change in this sector? And the answer is absolute. I think it accelerates changes that are probably too much.
I think it’s fair to say that from a theatrical perspective, some of the things we see, including “Mulan”, are very pragmatic performances, because that’s what it is. That said, I think it’s also fair to say that there will be changes in a theater distribution. We go to the actual distribution to believe incredibly aggressively forward. But I also think that – will the window stay on 130 plus days? I do not think so. But I do not think anyone else thinks.
So the question is how do we get here from here, and that’s obviously great for a lot of good copy, as they say in the press.
Do you think you would be open to making a similar move that Disney did this week with “Mulan”?
So I have no specific comment on that. I think we with “Tenet” should judge this based on our decision making about “Tenet”, that is: We believe in the theater business. We are excited to partner with Chris Nolan to get “Tenet” in the theater first.
And then of course it will be in a different format, in different locations, which are not theater. But I think, if you look at our behavior, we are believers in the theater experience, and of course we are also in very close communication with everyone in the exhibition sector, about the subject of windows and about how we collective customers can serve in the best way possible going forward.
That I know it’s a pretty provocative topic, and I get it and it’s very understandable. But at the end of the day, I’m excited about it, and I believe in it.
