In October, John Stankey announced plans to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service in late 2019 and now it has been announced that AT&T veteran Brad Bentley will run the service as general manager and executive vp for direct-to-consumer development at WarnerMedia. Furthermore, Turner CTO Jeremy Legg has been tasked with overseeing the service from a technology standpoint. On the decision to designate responsibilities for HBO’s technology operation to Jeremy Legg, Stankey wrote:
“[It will allow WarnerMedia] to execute decisively to align on target platforms, and coordinate the resources across these organizations that represent components of a unified direct-to-consumer technology platform.”
The HBO tech team will remain in place, according to Stankey, who wrote of goals for the shift:
“[It] is to provide focus and scale to the most important elements of these efforts and to make sure they have the proper resources.
The new appointments were announced in a memo to employees on Monday morning, in which Stankey also wrote:
“Bringing the product we envision to the marketplace will require the support, coordination and cooperation of all WarnerMedia entities. […] As an organization, we have many industry and structural dynamics pushing and pulling against our traditional approach to operating and running the business. The balance we must strike is between positioning the company to succeed within the realities of the future and keeping the business in a position to execute in today’s marketplace.”
Details on the streaming service are currently limited, though it will consist of programming from across the WarnerMedia portfolio and will be more expensive than HBO’s current over-the-top subscription plan, though a final price will not be determined until the platform comes to market.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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