WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar has declared HBO Max's superiority to other streaming services, like Netflix.
HBO Max is the latest in a series of streaming services to pop up during quarantine. In the past six months, we've seen NBCUniversal's Peacock, Disney+, AT&T TV Now, Quibi and AppleTV+ to name a few. WarnerMedia's HBO Max launched on May 27, 2020. Kilar, a former CEO of Hulu, was named CEO of WarnerMedia at the beginning of May with a mission to, "push a legacy media company into the future."
Kilar's first order of business as CEO, in addition to firing three chief deputies, was to throw all resources into prioritizing HBO Max. This aligns with his desire to make the company more consumer-oriented. When asked how the streaming service can compete with other more established services, like Netflix, Kilar responded, "Quality. When I first joined the company, I did this introduction video from my garage to say hello." Kilar used this opportunity to identify his goals for the future of the company. "I did a two-minute video to introduce myself and explain why I made the decision to join the company. The first thing I said was 'quality bar.'"
Kilar's confidence in WarnerMedia as a whole is due to the examples set by other execs before him. "We all have quality bars. When I think about Casey Bloys, Toby Emmerich and Peter Roth, the thing that’s consistent among their teams and their people is where they place the quality bar, which I’d argue is just a cut above."
HBO Max has effectively replaced HBO Go/HBO Now and is currently available for $14.99 a month.
(via Bloomberg News)