New HBO boss wants more original programming to fight subscriber turnover

Earlier this year, AT&T acquired Time Warner in a hotly contested, $85 billion deal. That means AT&T now owns networks like TNT, CNN, TBS and HBO. HBO may be the crown jewel in the Time Warner crown, and AT&T is looking for ways to push it toward even greater success. John Stankey, the AT&T exec now overseeing HBO, made waves earlier this month when he held a town hall meeting with HBO employees and said he wants more subscribers, and he wants them to spend more of their time watching HBO.

Since then, some people (okay, us) have been a bit nervous about what this means for the network. Will its standards of quality drop? Does AT&T want to turn HBO into something more like Netflix, which is less selective about which shows it develops, or newcomer Amazon, which is making an expensive push to great into genre TV? Stankey addressed some of these questions in an earnings call with Wall Street analysts earlier this week, the first such call since the deal went through. Variety brings us the goods.

First up, Stankey was directly asked whether his comments during the town hall meeting meant that HBO was going to change its programming mix to push for a larger audience. Stankey said that reporting on the town hall had not “effectively characterized what we are about,” but didn’t say anything else. So…good?

HBO programming president Casey Bloys, who was at the company before the AT&T deal and looks like he’s staying, went into more detail in a different interview, saying that “there’s no plans to dilute the HBO brand, there’s no plans to get into reality programming or something like that. It’s doing more of what we do.”

"Our brand stands for excellence in programming. There is an implicit promise that when a subscriber turns on HBO, of quality. If that changes, we have a problem. So I don’t want to get into the volume business where we’ve lost that. I do believe that we can do more and keep that brand as our north star and not lose what it stands for."

Bloys also expressed doubt that the culture at HBO is going to change, which is good, because it’s that culture, with its willingness to take risks, that has produced great shows from The Sopranos to The Wire to Game of Thrones. The best case scenario here is that AT&T will give HBO a lot more money to make more content, which will result in more terrific programming fans will love.

And indeed, that’s the goal, basically. Stankey said that the purpose of making “a very responsible investment” in HBO is to get give subscribers more shows to watch throughout the year, thus preventing them from dipping in and out depending on what shows are on at the time. “[The goal is to] balance out the schedule in way that creates a more engaging consumer experience over the course of the year,” he said. “[The team at HBO] feels comfortable that we can flex up on development in a way that rounds out the schedule very nicely.”

"We have a tremendous amount of great projects already in the funnel. They’ve not been in a position to say yes to because of constraints on certain resources. We’re attempting to open up those constraints on high-quality top projects."

We still don’t know exactly how much money AT&T is investing in HBO, or how many new shows will be greenlit. But with a new show from Avengers director Joss Whedon on the way and at least one Game of Thrones prequel in the pipeline, it looks like the uptick has already started. We’ll be watching to see how it shakes out.

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