Despite 'Big Cultural Differences,' AT&T Can Work With HBO, Needham's Martin Tells TPI
AT&T may not stumble integrating Time Warner's HBO as part of buying TW, Needham & Co.'s Laura Martin told Technology Policy Institute President Scott Wallsten. Asked by the TPI head on a podcast if AT&T is "going to be able…
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to work with HBO," the board member of the group replied yes: But "there are going to be big cultural differences. The culture at Time Warner was very much autonomous, autonomy. I think AT&T is a little more buttoned up and centralized." Offsetting that is that AT&T reportedly wants "to give HBO more money to have more series," she continued. "That’s a good idea." She noted HBO spends about $3 billion in the U.S. on content annually, versus Netflix's $12 billion globally. "It’s fair to say Netflix is becoming a dominant member of the content creation community," spending more than CBS, Disney and NBC combined, the analyst said in a taping July 17 emailed Monday night. "By that definition, they are definitely a dominant player in the content creation business. When you look at Emmys, and they just did surpass HBO for the first time I think in seven years. ... So you would hope that if you spend four times as much that you can have just as many Emmys." Netflix was nominated for 112, HBO for 108, Wallsten and Martin said. What "remains to be seen" is whether the streaming video provider can form a culture that encourages high-quality content creation, Martin said. "These cultures that hold on for long periods of time to the most talented people are just really rarefied air in terms of being hands off and hands on simultaneously, and having a lot of creative people around to rub shoulders with and collaborate with. So Netflix has to prove out that it can create and maintain a studio system so people are on the payroll." HBO's spending of $2 billion to $3 billion annually on content is for what it makes in or for the U.S. and sells worldwide, Martin told us Tuesday. The unit was part of TW before the parent's sale to AT&T. Netflix's $12 billion of spending forecast for 2018 includes money for local content in the U.S., France and Latin America, she said. Also Tuesday, AT&T and Netflix didn't comment.