I wrote about HBO’s “really active” dealmaking as the Skydance merger closed and the leaked Disney memo warning of a “much smaller organization,” and scooped Sony and Prime Video’s new Spider-Man shows.
How did David Ellison choose between Casey Bloys and Cindy Holland?
As I’ve been reporting for months, the standoff between the chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max and the former Netflix head of originals-turned-Paramount’s chair of DTC was simmering among the many brutal choices Ellison needed to make (with many more still ahead). But how did Ellison ultimately pick between two first-ballot TV Hall of Fame executives — neither of whom had any intention of answering to anyone but Ellison himself?
In the end, Ellison chose Bloys. And the decision, which left some Paramount employees in tears, wasn’t necessarily about the better résumé. It was on one level about the extraordinary weight of the HBO brand, the value of keeping its leadership intact — and the uncomfortable reality that Holland, despite everything she’d done for Ellison, had become, in his mind, expendable.
Today I have the inside story of what went down. What was Netflix offering — and did Bloys have another card to play?
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