Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

AT&T Executive Taking Over HBO and CNN Promises a Hands-Off Approach

John Stankey, left, with the Time Warner chief Jeffrey L. Bewkes last year. Now that AT&T has completed its acquisition of Time Warner, Mr. Stankey will oversee the business that includes HBO, CNN and movie franchises like “Harry Potter.” Mr. Bewkes will retire.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

After AT&T closed its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner on Thursday, the wireless giant immediately appointed John Stankey, a 30-year veteran of AT&T, to oversee the part of the business that includes CNN, HBO and valuable film franchises such as “Harry Potter.”

Mr. Stankey, 55, who once led wireline operations at AT&T and more recently oversaw the start of its streaming service, DirecTV Now, is now in charge of a $31 billion conglomerate that comprises Warner Bros. film studios, Turner and HBO.

In an internal note to employees on Friday, he announced that John Martin, the chief executive of Turner, would be leaving. The executives under Mr. Martin, including CNN’s Jeff Zucker, will report directly to Mr. Stankey, as will the HBO chief Richard Plepler and the Warner Bros. head Kevin Tsujihara. Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, will be a senior adviser during a transition period and then retire.

The Time Warner name will also be retired and the company will be rechristened WarnerMedia. In addition, “many of the redundant corporate support functions” will be eliminated, according to the note. AT&T estimates cost savings of about $2.5 billion over the next few years.

In an interview, Mr. Stankey spoke about his early plans for the media conglomerate. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

You are currently on a tour meeting Time Warner executives. Are you still in New York?

I left early this morning. I’m now in Atlanta.

And now I’ve had an opportunity to meet with a number of folks. Obviously, the team is large. I haven’t gotten to everybody yet. That’s one reason why I’m in Atlanta.

There are questions and concerns about the culture fit between the two companies. Everything from expense perks to pricey pay packages, an expectation in the entertainment industry. How do you plan to manage that?

I’m well aware there’s some differences between the two businesses’ cultures, and my boss is well aware that there’s differences, and we’re being deliberate in how we’re choosing to set up the organization and manage it.

My job is to ensure those cultural differences are a nonissue. And so it would be a silly thing for me to do to walk in and try to suggest that there’s a one-size-fits-all approach to two businesses that are in two different industries that grew up differently that have different sets of expectations. And I think we’re probably savvy enough individuals and experienced enough business professionals that we know how to strike the balance on that. And that’s my job. And if I don’t do that job well I won’t be here very long.

Owning a media business often comes with having to manage politically sensitive content. Samantha Bee and Bill Maher are examples of talent whose shows have irked some audiences. Will they be given the same freedom they’re used to getting now?

People who are running the creative process are professionals at running the creative process. I don’t believe that AT&T — the historical AT&T — by its nature brings much capability or intellectual property to do that better.

The question is, are we going to have a different attitude or approach to it? The answer is, probably not. I will give you an example. I know what went down a few weeks ago. I’ve obviously taken particular note of it. We’ve asked ourselves during those events, “What would we be doing?” And when I compare notes with my companions at Time Warner, it’s surprising how close we are in our points of view and how we would choose to go about managing these things.

It sounds like you were referring to the Samantha Bee incident last month where she used a vulgarity to describe Ivanka Trump on her TBS show. She eventually apologized, as did the network. Was that handled in the right way?

I think they handled it very well.

At the end of the day, we’re going to be just fine. And rather than dwell on what might be, I think the important thing to do is watch how we handle those things when the eventual events occur. And they will occur, and we’re well aware that we need to be savvy about how we do that.

What about CNN? The president has called out the network on an almost daily basis as the enemy.

Well, first of all the folks at CNN will continue to do what they do without my involvement or intervention. I think they do that incredibly very well, and they will continue to do that under my leadership just like they did the day before I showed up here. My job is to make sure I work with them on giving them the resources and the capabilities to not only do what they’ve done well but find ways to distribute the information and the education they deliver to the population more broadly.

Have you met with Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN?

Yes, and I’m very excited that Jeff has agreed he’s going to spend time with me and teach me the things that I didn’t grow up with and get me deeper in some of the knowledge of how media and the news cycles work. And I’m really anxious to get involved with that. I think we’re going to have a great working relationship.

What about investment? HBO spends about $2.5 billion, for example, to Netflix’s $8 billion. Hulu already spends about $2.5 billion annually. Does AT&T plan to invest more in HBO?

I think HBO is a tremendous brand. I think they’ve done a phenomenal job. What I’ve learned about it during the pendency of this transaction, I think they’ve got a funnel and an opportunity to do even more. And I’m very excited personally about opening up those opportunities for them to pursue it and build more audience and more engagement. Because at the end of the day, we want our technology and we want our content to drive more customer engagement. If we have the opportunity to do that by investing we are going to invest to make that happen.

Does that mean more streaming services from HBO?

Whether it’s HBO or Turner or CNN or any other assets, over time you have to have direct relationship with the consumer where you can gauge how many minutes, or how many hours, you’re getting with that end user. And that is the North Star we’re following here.

I think the dynamic is: How do you get more engagement with the customer where you own a degree of that relationship, and you understand what the customer is doing, and you have the benefit of the data they bring to that equation? And you drive that engagement by putting more and engaging content in front of them.

And it sounds like you plan to use data as a way to inform programming decisions at Turner and HBO?

Nothing replaces the creative process, and having the best creative minds and the best ideas.

But data can inform issues like, how do you bundle and aggregate content? Who and how do you choose to distribute it to? How do you find monetization models where maybe instead of charging the customer directly through subscriptions or increasing rates, you can do it through advertising monetization? How do you learn about what kind of content customers are more passionate about that they burn through faster and therefore you want to start the right kind of relationships with creative talent that can build that kind of content? Data can help you be better, but it doesn’t replace a creative process and the value of creative assets.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: AT&T Executive Takes Helm at HBO and Turner, Promising a Light Touch. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT