Maybe Casey Bloys didn’t get the memo.
On Tuesday, Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison told reporters that in the “long term” he plans to “bring (HBO Max) and (Paramount+) together” into one streaming service.
“It will take time to get there,” Ellison said, referring to the merging of the two technology stacks. “So I think for the immediate future you will see them operating separately.”
“Given the way that AI technology and other things have progressed, we think we can really accelerate how quickly we achieve this goal,” he continued, adding that the “bundling” of services will be available “in the relatively short term.”
Ellison said he couldn’t be more specific today about the bundled options.
Last week, Bloys, who will head up all streaming at the combined Paramount/Warner Bros. company, said: Discovery, now simply called Skydance, said it believes HBO Max and Paramount+ will remain separate services with the possibility of being bundled together.
“I would say I don’t want to comment on what’s going to happen or anything like that, but I would point out the HBO Max-Disney package, which has been very successful,” Bloys said at Bloomberg’s Screentime event.
“So, could you see something like that happening? That would make a lot of sense,” he asked, then responded.
Well, there’s a new plan, Casey. And actually, that’s kind of the old plan.
In March, Ellison reported to Wall Street that he planned to combine his main streamer with those of WBD.
“We plan to combine the two services, which gives us just over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers today,” he said on a call with investors. “We think this really positions us to compete with industry leaders.”
Ellison reiterated that statistic during Tuesday’s press conference, adding that the (essentially) instant doubling of DTC subs allows Skydance to “compete with the Disneys, the Netflixes, the Amazons, and anyone in the world.” (Tuesday was the first day of operations for the new Skydance.)
The HBO brand will continue to “operate independently,” Ellison promised on the March call. “Casey (Bloys) and his team are doing an absolutely remarkable job at HBO. We envision this being able to operate independently, so that HBO can, quite frankly, do what it does incredibly well. Our view is that HBO should remain HBO. They’ve built a phenomenal brand. They’re a leader in the space, and we just want them to continue to do more.”
Gn entert
