Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was hired 90 days ago to shake up WarnerMedia and make the branded upstart SVOD service HBO Max competitive with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Peacock — and Disney-owned Hulu.
Kilar took a major step Aug. 7, letting WarnerMedia chairman Bob Greenblatt and Kevin Reilly, chief content officer for HBO Max and president of TNT, TBS and truTV, go in a major management reorganization. Andy Forssell, who worked with Kilar at Hulu, has been hired to oversee Max.
Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff, who replaced Kevin Tsujihara, and Casey Bloys, president of programming at HBO, will spearhead a combined oversight of studios and networks. No other management changes were disclosed.
Greenblatt and Reilly are industry veterans, with the former leaving NBCUniversal to help launch Max. Reilly has held executive positions at NBC, Fox, FX and Turner.
Kilar, who outlined the changes in a letter to staff, outlined five areas he seeks to improve: HBO Max’s scope and importance within the company; simplifying studio internal structure; creating a consolidated International unit focused on scale and efficiency; bringing our key commercial activities into one group; making other structural changes for efficiency and company effectiveness.
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The management changes aren’t surprising since Max launched with what some observers have characterized as an underwhelming consumer response. AT&T CEO John Stankey said Max generated 3 million subs through the second quarter, ended June 30, adding another one million thus far in the current quarter. With more than 30 million HBO pay-TV subs, including HBO Now, the conversion rate is disappointing.
“Because of the gift that is the Internet, we have what I believe is one of the greatest opportunities in the history of media, which is to deliver our beloved stories and experiences directly to hundreds of millions of consumers across the globe,” Kilar wrote. “The pandemic’s economic pressures and acceleration of direct-to-consumer streaming adoption places an even higher premium on these points.”