Departing WarnerMedia CEO Kilar sees future of Hollywood in the blockchain

Jason Kilar, CEO of WarnerMedia, came to Allen and Co.’s annual media conference. Sun Valley in Sun Valley, Idaho, USA July 6, 2021. REUTERS/Brian Losness/Photo File

April 5 (Reuters) – WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar says Hollywood’s future is on the block as he prepares to leave the media company he helped lead into the streaming era.

Kilar said he sees new opportunities at the intersection of story and technology even though he is reluctant to discuss next efforts.

The veteran tech executive said he has no retirement plans after announcing his departure from AT&T Inc. (TN) WarnerMedia’s unit ahead of a merger with Discovery Inc (DISCA.O) the deal is expected to close this month. read more

Kilar’s ​​career has spanned Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and he sees blockchain, a digital ledger that tracks transactions on computer networks, as a transformation of the entertainment business, primarily as the process of acquiring unique digital collections such as Non Fungible Tokens becomes easier.

“I think it’s going to be a potential wave that’s coming to Hollywood, in much the same way as the DVD wave came to Hollywood in the 90s,” Kilar told Reuters in an interview after he announced his departure to staff on Tuesday. .

“Obviously, that’s changing the economic fortunes of many of these companies, including WarnerMedia.”

Blockchain could also open up new forms of funding, Kilar said.

STREAMING WAR

Kilar has a long track record of driving technology and change in entertainment.

Formerly Amazon.com (AMZN.O) executives were recruited to lead Hulu, because they didn’t rely on some assumptions about how television should work, according to executives involved in creating Hulu.

In the two months after Hulu launched in March 2008, the site, which was once dubbed by critics in the blogosphere as ClownCo, grew in popularity.

Kilar left Hulu in 2013, after disagreeing with the company’s owner, former News Corp (NWSA.O)NBCUniversal and Walt Disney Co (DIS.N)who have pushed for more ads and stopped the free version of the service.

Kilar launched his own subscription video service for social media content, Vessel, which was then sold in 2016 to Verizon, and four years later he joined WarnerMedia, when the COVID-19 pandemic spread.

The experience led to changes that threatened to make Hollywood again. Faced with closed movie theaters and constant online competition, Kilar broke the traditional “window” for films, which would have brought the film home after a long show in theaters.

Kilar screened the new film in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service on the same day, during the pandemic. The experiment began with the premiere of “Wonder Woman 1984” on Christmas Day 2020, and continued until 2021.

The move provides permanent new entertainment for the service as the pandemic disrupts production schedules across the industry. It also helped HBO Max, and cable TV network HBO, to add 73.8 million subscribers.

“History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge the way they have been defined,” Kilar said in a 2011 blog post.

Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in New York; editing by Peter Henderson and Stephen Coates

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