Transcript: An HBO Quake Rocks Hollywood

David Zaslav's crown jewel is going basic — and the ground shifts again

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Sean McNulty (00:04):

Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. This is Sean McNulty of The Wakeup newsletter here at The Ankler, here in New York City on Thursday, September 12th. I'm joined in Los Angeles by Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield. Richard, have you been called in to mediate the DirecTV-Disney standoff yet? It's over a week and counting. Clearly they need a professional to come in and settle this better. Have you been called in yet?

Richard Rushfield (00:24):

Yeah, I mean, they ask me to come by. Every time I look into it, they keep throwing all these numbers at me and everything, and I say-

Sean McNulty (00:33):

There's your problem.

Richard Rushfield (00:34):

Let me know how I see Battlestar Galactica reruns and don't bore me with the details, is what I'm trying to figure out. And these guys need to straighten that out.

Sean McNulty (00:47):

Clearly. I think, Elaine, he comes in just pitching the Hello, Larry channel and they're just like, “No, we're not here for that. Richard, it's not a pitch session for new TV channels.”

Richard Rushfield (00:54):

Well, I mean if they can't get that straight, then...

Sean McNulty (00:59):

What are we all doing here?

Elaine Low (01:00):

Richard's like flipping a table, "I'm out of here! No Hello, Larry Station? All right."

Richard Rushfield (01:05):

What's the point of any of this? You think people want to see your...

Sean McNulty (01:10):

Sporting events.

Richard Rushfield (01:11):

... people throwing balls to each other or something?

Sean McNulty (01:13):

No, definitely not a very active genre on television, but not a peep of positive movement there on either side here as we head into another weekend of a full docket of college and pro sports and nothing beyond the point of no return here. But I'll note that DirecTV's CMO called the subscriber loss so far "not immaterial." That was at the Goldman Sachs media conference today. So again...

Elaine Low (01:37):

You got to love a double negative.

Sean McNulty (01:39):

Not immaterial.

Elaine Low (01:40):

Exactly. It's not immaterial.

Sean McNulty (01:42):

Very much an investment banker speak laid very much on point for that. So again, they are a private company, we'll not get any exact numbers as to what the damage is here, but certainly the clock goes on. So we'll see how that all rounds out. But, of course, it is Emmys weekend in Los Angeles and the trifecta of early fall film fests is just about over, just waiting to see what wins the notable TIFF Audience Award this year. But our resident expert, Katey Rich, will be joining us in a little bit to give us the insider perspective on all of those matters. But here in the industry, Elaine, it's not HBO, it's just TV. A bit of a sad day in Hollywood, I think, or I think it is, depends how you want to spin this headline, but HBO programming now just comes with your basic cable subscription, at least if you're a Charter basic cable subscriber, that's the second largest cable company, but they're the largest TV bundle provider in the U.S. here.

(02:37):

All of their Select TV plan subscribers, which I think are around 9 million folks in the U.S., will soon be able to sign up for Max the ad-tier for free. So that includes all the HBO programming on that, just like you can get free Paramount+, they get free Disney+, they get free AMC+, free BET+, Spanish language service called Vix. No exact date on this Max launch. You also get Discovery Plus, too, free, I should say. They're included there. But Elaine, this is something, no?