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Might be AT&T I don’t want HBO Max anymore, but the streaming platform is attracting customers.
Home to genre-changing series like “Game of Thrones” and “The Sopranos” and Hollywood blockbusters like “Wonder Woman 1984,” HBO and HBO Max added 10.7 million customers and 2.8 million in just over a year. . Three months ending in June, AT&T reported on Thursday. These figures include both HBO Max and the HBO TV channel.
The company has 67.5 million subscribers to HBO and HBO Max, including 47 million in the US. AT&T, which has reached an agreement with sell your media Businesses expect HBO and HBO Max to have between 70 million and 73 million customers by the end of the year, exceeding previous estimates.
Netflix, the most popular streaming service, has 209 million subscribers, of which approximately 66 million are in the US. It gained customers in the second quarter, but growth slowed significantly and lost 430,000 subscribers in the US and Canada. cracks are starting to show under the long-standing dominance of the pennant.
Speaking about the broader streaming industry, Jason Kilar, general manager of WarnerMedia, AT&T’s media arm, said, “The only thing I can promise you is change. There is no doubt that change is coming, and that is appropriate because we live in a dynamic time.”
CNN, Warner Bros. WarnerMedia, which includes film and television studios and Turner cable networks, is the property of Discovery Inc. media companies continue to eat each other To take over Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The deal, expected to close by mid-next year, will create the second-largest media business in the United States, behind The Walt Disney Company and ahead of Netflix and NBCUniversal.
Mr. Kilar, who learned that he was taken He could be out of work after the deal closes, just weeks before the announcement.
Both companies are prohibited from working together until the merger has been approved by government regulators, including the signing of any employment contract. Still, such agreements often include implied arrangements for leadership. Mr Kilar said he spoke socially with Discovery’s president, David Zaslav, but did not bring up the subject of his work.
“David and I have known each other for a long time,” he said, “and I think it’s fair to say there’s a lot of mutual respect between us.”
Mr. Kilar, who took over the company just said 15 months ago There were no plans to leave.
“Next year there will be a point where I ponder this topic,” he continued. “But I certainly don’t plan to do it until 2022.”
Kilar, the founding CEO of Hulu, is considered somewhat of an iconoclast in Hollywood. In 2011, he steered the sector with a famous brand. manifesto on the future of entertainment this came as a harsh criticism of Hulu’s corporate ownership to many.
The post swayed traditional TV to run too many commercials. Mr. Kilar also blew the cable, anticipating that viewers would eventually drop the expensive packages.
After Mr. Kilar joined WarnerMedia, he quickly changed management ranks and cut costs to streamline the business.
Then, breaking tradition and all 2021 Warner Bros. He angered Hollywood (again) by airing his films on HBO Max on the day of their theatrical release. The move would cost some of Hollywood’s biggest players back-end profits — commission earned by top producers and stars based on box office revenues — but the company quickly struck deals to ensure they were paid.
Unlike Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max and other newcomers have legacy agreements with cable distributors and Hollywood studios that hinder a more comprehensive approach to making movies and TV shows immediately available online.
For Mr. Kilar, this move wasn’t about upsetting Hollywood, but rather part of a larger strategy HBO Max for digging.
It looks like it worked. On HBO Max, “Godzilla vs. The launch of shows for the big screen such as “Kong” has helped increase the service’s customer base.
Mr. Kilar plans to continue this strategy until 2022. Warner Bros. will release 10 movies exclusively for the streaming platform. Big-budget movies like “The Batman,” a remake of the comic book character starring Robert Pattinson, will have relatively short windows in theaters, 45 days before they premiere on HBO Max, according to Mr. Kilar.
“This is very, very different from the way the world works in 2019,” he said. “Ultimately, I think change can be very, very good not only for customers, but also for the people we work with, as long as you think about it.”
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