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1. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes Flip-Flops, Now Admires Netflix
Certainly top on this week's unexpected list was Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes' newfound affection for Netflix, expressed in an interview with Charlie Rose at the Tribeca Film Festival (see below video, starting at the 4:40 point). Until now Bewkes has been withering in his derision for Netflix, famously comparing them to the Albanian army, and all but saying HBO would only offer its programs for streaming on Netflix when hell froze over.
But this week Bewkes totally flip-flopped, saying things like he looks at Netflix with a certain sense of "fondness," "Welcome brother" to the subscription business, "You've gotta admire them," "They've done a bold thing, a good thing in many ways," "They're offering a subscription service that is very valid and effective" and "They've got a lot of interesting stuff on there mostly that's available in other places but that's no criticism."
Whoa, what's going on here? Here's my take: Bewkes' lieutenants, especially at HBO and Warner Bros., have woken him up to the idea that by criticizing Netflix, he's increasingly looking out of touch with the new realities of the Hollywood landscape. Contrary to Bewkes' unstated hope that fellow studios and networks would shun Netflix, withholding content and hobbling the company, they have instead embraced Netflix, licensing it new content seemingly every week. With Netflix reporting 23.6 million subscribers this week, Bewkes' periodic remarks only served to show that he didn't "get it."
One last thought - if you watch the short segment, you'll hear Bewkes start to say about Netflix, "It's now pretty cheap, relative to." and then catch himself and switch to another point. That's the real tell: as I pointed out recently in "Could HBO be the Next BLOCKBUSTER," HBO executives may have finally internalized the idea that by sitting on top of an increasingly expensive basic cable buy-through, they're at a huge competitive disadvantage to Netflix. What happens next now that Bewkes has softened the ground? "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" comes to mind: an HBO streaming deal with Netflix at some point. It's just foolish for HBO not do so.Categories: Aggregators, Cable Networks
Topics: HBO, Netflix, Time Warner
