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"Achievement unlocked" is then the very next sentence 🤣.

Tl;dr issa PR puff piece for Casey.

That would've been terrible

When Bloys took over HBO Max originals in 2020, it had already been established with HBO-like product. But with cost-conscious Discovery coming in, it was clear that there would need to be more of a delineation. “The kind of shows they were going to were a little bit too HBO-adjacent,” Bloys says. “Now on the one hand, I’m thrilled because a good show is a good show. But from a business point, of view, what I want to make sure is if I’m spending a certain amount of money on HBO programming, any money I’m spending beyond that, I want to make sure that those shows have a job to do — which is to push out from the HBO programming.”

This whole article is a puff piece for Bloys but this article did give us some insight into Bloys and Zaslav’s plans for the remaining Max original shows. There will be a lot less of them, they will have lower budgets, they will be more IP focused, and they will not be HBO style shows but shows that reach for different demos and audiences such as Sex Lives of College Girls.

It is interesting that both Bloys and Orci felt like Max was ordering shows that could easily have been HBO shows and was not broadening the audience of the service enough as a result. They probably have a point but I’ll absolutely miss shows like Station Eleven, Julia, Tokyo Vice, The Staircase, Warriors, and Our Flag Means Death. Even the upcoming Love & Death miniseries feels very much like an HBO limited series.

All that said, I did enjoy Peacemaker, The Flight Attendant, and Sex Lives of College Girls so hopefully this new direction for the Max originals still delivers us some very watchable shows.

>Give each episode an additional episode with the final season being Henry

I read this like 5 times and I still have genuinely no idea what you're suggesting.

Any profile from Variety, Deadline, or The Hollywood Reporter are puff pieces. They are the mouth pieces for the industry.

Edit: Not saying they aren’t worth visiting - probably the best places to get actual industry news. Just saying these specific articles they produce are basically industry propaganda.

I think the whole industry is in a upheaval and it’s much needed. It’ll take time for content to get back to a regular pace but it’s healthy considering the industry is splintering itself hard rn. Sony looking like geniuses for not having a streamer for their own stuff and just licensing off stuff

> It is interesting that both Bloys and Orci felt like Max was ordering shows that could easily have been HBO shows and was not broadening the audience of the service enough as a result.

I honestly think this is really stupid and short sighted on their part.

That HBO proper level of quality is precisely the reason so many people viewed HBO Max as the premier streaming service.

And broadening the audience is just another term for diluting your brand. Which is definitely NOT what HBO needs to be doing.

This coming on the heels of the WB takeover makes me think all is not well over there, and this is Bloys doing damage control to make it seem like he's still got a handle on it.

Guess only time will tell.

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They are saying they should have stretched out each episode into 2 episodes worth of story whereby I guess that's a a typo nd they won't final episode would be henry and Sam story?

Sony did not need a streamer as they had no broadcast or cable businesses of note that needed to be replaced. That cable and broadcast revenue and profits made up the bulk of their business and was far more valuable than the studios.

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This article confirms that Miguel and Ryan had a falling out over HoTD, I wonder what that was about.

Deadline can occasionally be really sarcastic and snarky on the issues, but less and less all the time

this would turn a 15 hour game into a 20 hour show lmao. Ludicrous suggestion. It's a fairly lean storyline without much unnecessary padding, they are pacing it excellently thus far

It was founded as an alternative to the big two trades, intended to take the piss out of the industry a bit while still delivering exclusives. Over the years, it’s basically become the same as THR and Variety.

Read the article, and you get a better sense of the point being made. Bloys is making these decisions to protect the HBO brand, not to dilute it, and nothing he says in the interview sounds much like damage control to me. Quite the opposite, actually, as it seems they've finally chosen a path to delineate the two different production teams:

Max Originals will now focus on tentpole, IP-based projects that wouldn't really feel at home on HBO (Dune: Sisterhood, Welcome to Derry, the DC content, etc.) and content that reaches audiences not typically targeted by HBO original programming (The Sex Lives of College Girls, The Flight Attendant, etc.).

And HBO will just continue what they're doing, but with an increased budget.

The show is perfectly fine as is, the people who want hours of corridor sequences featuring Joel shooting soldiers and zombies in the face will always have the game.

Yes, even on /r/television people are often confused about the difference between a HBO show and HBO Max show. It must have been even more common among more casual viewers.

I read the article before I commented. It's a vapid, worthless puff piece that's more interested in fellating Bloys than actually giving any meaningful insight.

And frankly, his intentions are irrelevant. Just because he says something, that doesn't automatically make it a good idea. This would be far from the first time an exec made absolutely moronic decisions about their product.

Everyone I know saw Max as an extension of HBO proper; the similarities only increased the company's rep and prestige among consumers. I think he's searching for an answer to a problem which doesn't actually exist, while creating new problems in the process.

Wait what’s happening with Our Flag Means Death? Isn’t that coming back?

The other one that felt different and I really liked was Made for Love but I guess the viewership wasn’t worth the cost.

It is coming back. I’m just saying it felt like a regular HBO comedy so they are not likely to order this sort of show in the future at Max. The stuff they already have that has found an audience seems safe. At least I hope so! It would be awful if the cancelled Our Flag Means Death! I like it better than the regular HBO comedies with the possible exception of Barry.

Why does it matter, though? I watch all HBO shows through HBO Max, and all HBO Max shows through HBO Max. I don't have cable and there is functionally no difference in the product to me. If the argument is, "hey, we don't have to make as many high quality shows and we'll still retain that audience that wants high quality shows" - well, I get it, even if I don't agree as a consumer, but trying to lean into the bifurcation like people are going to pay for both HBO and HBO Max as separate entities feels unrealistic, or at least unlikely.

Miguel wanted to make it so they never remove the camera lens cap next season.

I hope this means that Julia will get another season.

Wait I can't follow the reasoning, I think some executive said ( or was it an editorial?) They hadn't enough night to schedule so many show so Max gave they shelves to expand it? Maybe it was a previous exec

I disagree the show is incredibly rushed and the pacing is bad. The only normal paced episode was episode 3 and that was because it was mostly self-contained

The pacing is really bad and rushed. Also games are a different medium than shows

The show is rushed

Ryan threw Miguel under the bus

I disagree. HBO is a bigger name than Warner Bros and it’s prestige tv would attract new subs. Stop gatekeeping

Not enough to warrant having doubled the episode count for each one we've currently got.

Something about Miguel wanting to give his wife a more prominent role in front of and behind the camera.

Interestingly, he did represent the show at the Golden Globes and made the acceptance speech when they won, so hopefully it wasn't a bitter split.

That was the previous executive team. They wanted Max to build out both the target audience and the volume of shows. Which they did. In 2022 we got 23 scripted originals airing on HBO and another 23 scripted shows airing as Max originals. The new regime are obviously looking to reduce that volume a good bit to get the financials looking healthier. Most of the cuts will be on the Max end.

The other issue is the Max shows were supposed to target a difference audience to the regular HBO shows. More blockbuster than prestige or target underserved demos. The result was some shows like Raised By Wolves, Titans, Doom Patrol, and Peacemaker that would not work as regular HBO shows but did target a younger male demo. Then you had the female skewing shows like And Just Like That, Gossip Girl, Julia, Pretty Little Liars, Sex Lives of College Girls, Made For Love, The Flight Attendant, etc that gave the HBO Max service a better male/female demo balance than the regular HBO shows offered.

The big issue is shows like Hacks and Julia felt just like HBO shows. The biggest issue was that shows like Tokyo Vice, The Staircase, Station Eleven, Our Flag Means Death, and the upcoming Love & Death limited series are all just shows that feel exactly like regular HBO shows and target their core demo. All great shows but they did not really broaden the reach of the service as was the original intention of the Max originals.

They want more distinction between the HBO and Max originals in the future. With the aim being that the Max shows will be used to attract a new audience to the service and broaden its overall reach. Max shows will probably lean a lot more into established IP in the future like DC and spin-offs from movies franchises like Dune and It.

Be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming years. Most of the stuff we will get in 2023 and probably the bulk of 2024 will be stuff that has been in the works under the previous direction so we will likely not see the impact of this recent harder pivot until we get newer shows in 2025.

I’ll be very interested to see if regular HBO keeps its 23 scripted shows volume in 2023. They promised not to cut regular HBO programming but I’ve got my doubts they will match the 2022 volume in 2023.

great response

They aren't trying to separate the two and charge for them independently, though. They're giving each of their 3 major original scripted content divisions - HBO, DC, & Max Originals - a clear programming directive and scheduling goals, which is a positive for all parties involved.

HBO is a bigger name than Warner Bros on Reddit, you mean.

He loves editing dark scenes with the best equipment, but fuck everyone else who doesn't have as high quality, those people can stay blind.

Yeah, Ryan's writings is questionable as best

The problem actually exists, and is obvious in the subtext: He doesn't have enough money to do many of those kinds of shows anymore. So he's putting a PR spin on it in this article. It's fairly obvious, lol.

>content that reaches audiences not typically targeted by HBO original programming

Except they got rid of most of their diversity executives during their big wave of firing after their merger. The headline is a bit sensational but the effects are the same whatever the intent was.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/laid-off-hbo-max-execs-reveal-warner-bros-discovery-is-killing-off-diversity-and-courting-middle-america

​

>Former HBO Max staffers say there are barely any non-white people left in the upper ranks of content, with one naming Joey Chavez, an executive vice president of drama, as one of the few people of color still there. Because HBO Max and the original HBO channel operate somewhat independently, one former executive conceded that “there may be one Black woman on the HBO side. Maybe.”
>
>The layoffs have “amplified the lack of diversity at HBO,” another former executive told The Daily Beast. “HBO is the most homogenous part of this umbrella. Instead of trying to figure out how to integrate some of the [Max] executives into HBO, they just made this sweeping cut of three divisions: kids, family, and international. A lot of Black and brown people lost their jobs.”

Isn't the 2023 volume also finalised way before this pivot?

I think the other big, unsaid, thing here is that they are clearly going to decrease the total volume of big budget shows that they commission. For instance, I doubt we are getting another original blockbuster sci-fi or fantasy show from HBO (or Max) under this new regime.

They have scope to push back shows and space them out a bit more to lower the overall volume output. It just means they will not need to order so many new shows for a spell as shows planed for the last half of 2023 can be pushed to the front half of 2024. They can easily sit on limited series and they have already cleaned out the ongoing roster by axing a whole bunch of shows. Then you have the fact that the real big budget shows like House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, and even Perry Mason are already on 2 year gaps between new seasons. Even the regular dramas (think Succession, The Gilded Age, Euphoria) are on 18 month timelines. All that will help them reduce that combined 46 show volume they had in 2022.

I think we will get more big budget HBO shows even under this regime. I just do not expect any more big expensive dramas until they start to wrap a few of the ongoing series. We will definitely not be getting any new fantasy of sci-fi shows until House of the Dragon and The Last of Us wrap. Not at HBO. On the other hand it does seem like the Max originals are going to be all in on DCU shows and movie spinoffs TV shows from It, Dune, and The Batman. So less prestige and original genre fare but we will still get genre shows of this type from Max. Which is better than nothing even if it means no more original stuff like Raised by Wolves.

I think this new regime will be quicker to cancel the shows that do not find a good audience and less interested in ordering such shows in the first place. Which means less niche shows like Los Espookys, Gentlemen Jack, Betty, etc being ordered in general and most being cancelled after a single season if they do not garner big viewership ratings.

I agree with most of what you said except that only getting movie spin-offs for genre shows is better than nothing, I would rather have nothing.

> Then you had the female skewing shows like And Just Like That, Gossip Girl, Julia, Pretty Little Liars, Sex Lives of College Girls, Made For Love, The Flight Attendant,

Why did they cancel Minx then?

While still a PR piece there was a recent interview with Landgraf that I thought had some interesting responses in it. Much more so than this one of Bloys.

So it’s HBO has been trying to diversify and it failed evidently. Now they want HBO to focus on what they do best and leave the other demo for Max. Make sense when you think about it, if you don’t fall to the trap HBO=HBO max that WB trying to get rid off.

No, in Europe HBO is a bigger name than Warmer Bros

Master of Complaints over here

Same reason they cancelled Gossip Girl and Love Life. They are significantly cutting the volume output to save cash so eliminated the worst performing shows on a cost to viewership ratio.

Your assertion that HBO will have an increased budget is just made up out of thin air - all signs squarely to the opposite.

That isn't at all what was happening. AT&T wanted a giant streaming service that could appeal to everyone. HBO Max was built from the ground up with a more diverse set of executives and producers than HBO the cable channel. But when AT&T spun off Warner to Discovery, they also spun off over forty billion dollars of debt. Discovery management immediately started cutting across the board, including plenty of content that could have kept going if the new company's financials weren't in such dire shape. The cuts at HBO Max fell hardest on the culturally diverse side of the executives and the programming.

HBO Max's old mission was to be an all-audience first-rate streaming service similar to Disney/Hulu, Netflix, maybe Amazon Prime. They did very well at building that audience when they launched. The new mission is a lot less ambitious, a lot less diverse, and a lot more budget conscious than before. Whether or not it works out in the long run, they are likely to miss out on the opportunity to establish themselves as the undisputed leader of streaming services among today's competition.

Wrong. There are plenty of sources that state as much, including Bloys himself on The Watch podcast.

Makes sense cause they all have the same owner now.

Lol. You should learn to read PR spin carefully.

Minx is being moved to Starz. and its not a WB/HBO production but Lionsgate