It sounds hyperbolic, but it’s a question worth asking.HBOhas unleashed a barrage of hits lately, includingThe Last of Us,Succession,The White Lotus, andHouse of the Dragon. But the undisputed leader in prestige programming faces some severe headwinds on the horizon.SuccessionandBarryare wrapping up in May. HBO’s new (and latest) corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery is intent on reining in costs. And the current macroeconomic conditions have turned the larger media and tech space upside down. Will HBO be able to keep up its winning streak? Or is it possible the end of two of its landmark properties signals that HBO’s recent golden era could be coming to a close?
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HBO: A State of The Union
Let’s start with a look at HBO’s recent track record, which would (spoilers!) makeSuccession’s recently-deceased media mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox) proud. While HBO has been a reliable source of prestige TV since Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) graced our airwaves, the consistent string of hits the pay channel has pumped out the last few years is unprecedented. The season finale ofThe Last of Uspulled in over 8 million viewers(despite airing against the Oscars). That success was quick on the heels of the second season ofThe White Lotus, which alsodrew record-high viewership(not to mention upper-echelon TikTok theorizing content). Oh, and lest we forgetHouse of the Dragon, theGame of Thronesprequel that brought in between 9-10 million viewers for its premiereand finale. That’s even before you consider last year’s Season 2 ofEuphoriaand, in the years prior,Mare of Easttown,Big Little Lies,Chernobyl,Insecure, andWatchmen(to name a few). Casey Bloys, CEO of Content for HBO andHBO Max, helped put it in perspective toVariety:
“We have more shows doing higher numbers than we’ve ever had in the history of HBO. And that goes back to when we had ‘Six Feet Under,’ ‘The Sopranos,’ and ‘Sex and the City.”
An awe-inspiring feat in our modern age of fragmented media, where seemingly-unlimited content competes for our eyeballs. So why the concern-trolling? Well, as a wise man who likely has never seen any of these shows once said…
The Times, They Are A-Changin’
BarryandSuccession, two of the crown jewels in HBO’s crown,are ending this spring. Creatively, this is probably for the best (name one serialized TV series that didn’t see diminishing returns after Season 4), but commercially, it’s a bit of a surprise. Most hit shows, for better or worse, are drawn out into the 5-7 season range to maximize returns; the decision to end both series after 4 startled the industry. Even some stars were caught flat-footed by the news;Sarah Snookdidn’t know it would be her last season as Siobhan Royuntil the final table read. All the relevant parties insist this was always the plan, but one cannot help but wonder - are the shifting macroeconomic winds at play here?
It’s no secret Jerome Powell’s desperate fight against inflation has made funding content more expensive, meaning media companies no longer have carte-blanche to fuel growth at all costs.Streamers are adjusting accordingly. HBO, known to spend 100 million dollars a season on shows likeThe Last of UsandHouse of the Dragon, is undoubtedly under pressure to follow suit.
David Zaslav signaled as much once he became CEO of HBO’s newly-formed parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. Intent on finding efficiencies, Zaslav instituted a dizzying amount of changes to help offset the $50 billion in debt the conglomerate has on its books. Hesold offWestworld, once seen as the blockbuster successor toGame of Thrones, to FAST (free ad-supported television) channels. He abruptlycanceled projectslikeMinxandBatgirl(despite both being completed products ready for release). And he canceled mega-deals with star producers likeJ.J. AbramsandGreg Berlanti, which had yet to bear fruit.
In this new thrifty future, will HBO be allowed room to continue the support of artful, prestige darlings likeStation Eleventhat dominate the critical conversation, albeit not the national one, the way rivalParamount+‘sYellowstonedoes? Or will the focus move to cheaper programming that’s easier to monetize? This brings us to the giant D-shaped albatross in the room. The Discovery+ television assets that HBO and Bloys inherit from the merger are largely reality and unscripted television from places like HGTV and The Food Network — a far cry from the heavy-hitting dramas HBO is known for. Zaslav may expect HBO to mirror Discovery’s strategy with more of the cheap (and highly profitable) bread-and-butter fare people like to fold laundry to (as opposed to the wildly expensive programming HBO primarily produces today). Is it possible for this divided house to stand together?
Reading the Tea Leaves
It’s easy to speculate. Let’s instead look at what we know. Despite shows likeBarryandSuccessiontaking their final bow, HBO has plenty of buzzy projects ready to step up to the plate in their absence.The Idol, a new series fromEuphoriacreatorSam LevinsonstarringThe Weekndand nepo-babyLily-Rose Depp, premieres sometime this year. So doesWhite House Plumbers, a limited series depicting the Watergate scandal starringJustin Theroux,Woody Harrelson,Kiernan Shipka,Domhnall Gleeson, andLena Headey. We also will see the return of hit shows likeCurb Your Enthusiasm,How To With John Wilson, and most notably, the latest iteration in theTrue Detectivefranchise,True Detective: Night Country,starringJodie Foster. As if that weren’t enough, we can also expect future seasons ofEuphoria,Perry Mason, andIndustrysometime in the future. It’s an impressive list that will undoubtedly expand; Casey Bloys and Co. surely have more unannounced aces up their sleeves coming down the pipe.
This brings us to another reassuring fact: Casey Bloys, the creative leader most responsible for HBO’s recent and continued success, isn’t going anywhere. Among all the cutbacks, Zaslav did find time to double down on one precious resource: Bloys. Zaslavsigned him to a five-year contract, moved Bloys directly under him in the corporate restructuring, and even made the time to praise him in the press:
“He is the master class of nurturing and developing great creatives outside and inside HBO and curating amazing content. The result is the strongest HBO in history.”
So HBO’s near-term content pipeline is full, and a seasoned veteran is behind the wheel. But what about the increasingly tenable economics of streaming platforms? Bloys admits HBO will need additional revenue streams to offset content costs in this shifting environment. First on the list is a stalwart of the legacy TV economic model: off-network syndication.
“People kind of forget the history of television was windows, DVDs. These are expensive shows to make. The idea that they’re going to sit in a library forever and ever for $15 a month, that’s never how TV has operated.”
In other words, it’s safe to expect HBO to do more syndication deals with FAST channels, similar to the much-buzzed-aboutWestworlddeal that resulted in its removal from HBOMax (you can now watch it on Roku or Tubi with ads). This way, the costs behind all those dragons, zombies, and big stars now synonymous with HBO will be buoyed.
But what of the newly integrated Discovery+ content that is not synonymous with HBO? How does a show likeDr. Pimple Popperfit withSuccession? Simply put: it doesn’t. The latest news is that Warner Bros. Discovery will combineDiscovery+ and HBOMax into a new streaming service, “Max,” dropping HBO from the name. The hope here is to message to audiences this is a super app where you can watch both prestige and so-called ambient content. Or, as Julia Alexander, the director of strategy at the research firm Parrot Analytics,told The New York Times:
“Dropping HBO from the name is cementing that ‘we’re not just a home for premium programming. We’re the home for anything you want to watch.”
Wait, drop the HBO brand? So this IS the end of HBO as we know it? Highly unlikely. If anything, HBO will remain a cable TV channel and morph into a prestige brand within Warner Bros Discovery’s new Max app (similar to FX and its streaming brand “FX on Hulu”). This way, delineating the different content offerings of Discovery+ and HBO and preserving and protecting the HBO brand.
Let’s review. Casey Bloys, HBO’s fearless leader and steward of the brand, isn’t going anywhere and has the full support of David Zaslav. HBO has a stacked pipeline of prestige content on deck and will fuel future production by reviving tried-and-true television monetization methods like syndication. And any efforts from Warner Bros. Discovery to broaden programming for audiences will fall on the “Max” brand instead of HBO. SoBarryandSuccessionmay be ending, but HBO will continue to deliverBarryandSuccession-style programming in coming years as they chart a new path through our shifting TV landscape? As Bloyssaid himself,
“I had been there through the end of ‘Sopranos’ — the ‘What are they going to do?’ That was a big moment,” he says. “And you do realize, you make it through those times.”
