WarnerMedia has finally found a new CEO, and it’s none other than Jason Kilar. Who was one of the co-founders of Hulu.
So, Kilar knows a thing or two about streaming services. And that’s a good thing, seeing as AT&T – the owner of WarnerMedia – has at least six of them at this point.
Last September, the current CEO of WarnerMedia, John Stankey, was put in charge of AT&T, becoming its President and COO. Which meant that AT&T needed to find a new CEO for WarnerMedia. Now, they have one, Kilar will report to Stankey, and will be taking the reigns on May 1.
Kilar has the experience needed to lead WarnerMedia
Kilar, as mentioned, was one of the co-founders of Hulu. Which gives him a pretty solid background in streaming services. Which is important to WarnerMedia, as it looks to compete in a pretty diverse field of streaming services right now.
WarnerMedia has big competitors like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube TV. But now smaller providers like Disney+, Apple TV+, and Peacock are all looking to get a piece of the cake too.
Kilar also served as CEO of Hulu since founding the company in 2007, until his departure in 2013. He also worked in a variety of roles at Amazon. Which included being senior vice president of worldwide application software. All good attributes to lead WarnerMedia.
WarnerMedia houses all of the media properties that Time Warner had, before AT&T bought it for $100 billion. This includes HBO, Cinemax, truTV, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network, DC Comics, Boomerang, and many more. It also includes the Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California, which is now the second largest lot in the world. That’s where shows like The Ellen DeGeneres show is shot, as well as loads of movies.
While Kilar won’t be in charge of the streaming services that AT&T has, he will be in charge of the content side. WarnerMedia is going to need to produce new content for HBO Max, which is launching next month, as well as its other properties that are licensed to competing services like YouTube TV and Fubo TV, among others.
So he’s going to have an integral role here, and one that is going to be very important to AT&T’s success in the future. Given his success with Hulu, however, this shouldn’t be too hard for Kilar. We likely won’t see many changes with WarnerMedia, once Kilar takes over next month. Most of the changes will more than likely be behind-the-scenes.