The Mid-Career Reset: Two Top Execs Ditch Hollywood’s Playbook — and Find the Fun Again
Jana Winograde and Susan Rovner on their new app (scoop: we’ve got the name) and the bet on microdramas the industry can’t ignore
I host the Ankler Agenda podcast and wrote about millennials’ challenges and Gen Z’s entry pains in the current jobs landscape, the WGA’s new deal with the AMPTP and why some guild members are voting no, and Taylor Frankie Paul and Disney’s Bachelorette mess.
Everyone talks about taking big swings again, but few Hollywood execs actually feel safe enough to do it. Former Showtime president Jana Winograde and ex-Warner Bros. Television chief Susan Rovner didn’t wait.
The two longtime friends — who first clicked while both worked in ABC Entertainment’s movies-for-TV division in the ’90s — recently left the legacy system behind to launch a new company focused on microdramas. They now play faster and looser in ways unimaginable inside their former corporate behemoths: greenlighting shows from the back seats of cars; searching for new talent right out of film school; taking chances on whimsical storylines.
“You gotta accept the fact that the business has changed,” Rovner tells me in a wide-ranging conversation you can also listen to above, or watch on YouTube here. “We can hate it, we can be depressed about it, but it is a fact. You have to be open to looking at new avenues. The world looks different, and to wish it was the same feels like a fool’s errand.”
Their company formerly referred to as MicroCo in the press is called aTwist — I’m revealing the official name and website exclusively here today. The vertical series app is backed by former WME chair Lloyd Braun. It launches later this year.
The name is “meant to really just capture how we want fans to engage with us and what keeps them coming back,” says Winograde. “We want to be fan-forward and invite participation and reaction and repeat viewing.” Like other microdrama apps, aTwist will run on a combo of subscription and ad revenue, with users spending “coins” via microtransactions to open new chapters of stories. A free version with ads will also be available.
Today the duo reveal:
How they’re developing ideas — often instinctually and on the fly
Why microdramas are one of the few growth areas in TV right now
The legacy Hollywood rules they had to unlearn
How lower budgets are unlocking real creative risk
Why they’re betting on unknown writers (like Rovner once did with Supernatural’s Eric Kripke)
What mid-career execs can do to find new opportunities
How Gen Z can break into a shrinking industry
Note: Winograde and Rovner are together at NAB Show in Vegas today on The Ankler’s Business of Media and Entertainment stage with Dhar Mann Studios’ head of vertical content Erin McFarlane and Second Rodeo founder Scott Brown in a conversation with Natalie Jarvey.