HBO gets the buzz, but Warner Bros. leads Time Warner growth
HBO may be the most buzzed-about asset in the Time Warner media galaxy, but its won’t be as profitable in 2017 as the company’s Warner Bros. division.
“Earnings growth is being led by theatrical,” CEO Jeff Bewkes said at the UBS media conference on Tuesday.
That’s largely because seven Warner Bros. movies have already crossed the $100 million barrier in domestic ticket sales this year, including two $300-million-plus winners in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad.”
It’s the largest number of $100 million-plus movies in a single year since 2013 — when they had eight. Last year there were only three.
Bewkes predicted theatrical will lead his company next year, too, given a slate that draws from its iconic DC brands, including “Batman,” “Superman” and “Wonder Woman.”
The 64-year old executive also predicted, perhaps not surprisingly, that AT&T would wrap up its $85.4 billion acquisition of his company by “the end of 2017, if not sooner.”
Meanwhile, he attempted to deflect a report in The Post that the subscriber count for HBO Now’s over-the-top streaming service had slowed considerably at just above 1 million.
“We didn’t hit the wall,” he said. “And we’re not building the wall.”
With the attempted rebuttal out of his mouth, Bewkes didn’t provide an official number for subscribers to the $14.99-a-month premium service – launched in April 2015.
He did announced that HBO, his premium network, boasts 130 million subscribers worldwide.
Earlier in the day, at Business Insider’s “Ignition” conference, Bewkes said he didn’t think President-elect Donald Trump’s comments about torpedoing his company’s merger with AT&T were “a serious thing.”
Indeed, in a statement widely discussed in social media, Bewkes claimed the biggest threat to free speech wasn’t a Trump administration but, rather, the Democratic party.
“Remember, the Democratic party had a campaign plank to change the First Amendment, and they were doing it in the guise of campaign finance reform,” he said.
Time Warner’s CEO then expressed his fear that “cleaning up money in politics” could inadvertently “restrain multiple voices.”