T AT&T Inc

By Joe Flint and Drew FitzGerald 

AT&T Inc. tapped former Hulu boss Jason Kilar as chief executive of its WarnerMedia unit, which houses HBO, CNN and the soon-to-launch streaming service HBO Max.

Mr. Kilar succeeds John Stankey, 57 years old, who last year gained an additional title as AT&T's chief operating officer, putting him in line to succeed company Chief Executive Randall Stephenson. Mr. Kilar will report to Mr. Stankey.

The hiring of Mr. Kilar, 48, indicates how important the streaming-video business will be for WarnerMedia in the months ahead. Mr. Kilar was the founding chief executive of Hulu, the streaming service that is now controlled by Walt Disney Co.

"Jason is a dynamic executive with the right skill set to lead WarnerMedia into the future. His experience in media and entertainment, direct-to-consumer video streaming and advertising is the perfect fit for WarnerMedia," Mr. Stankey said in a statement.

WarnerMedia plans to launch HBO Max late next month after more than a year of development. The effort faces a host of challenges, from persuading cable-TV partners to promote the new application to attracting customers in a market crowded with competing services from Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Comcast Corp. and Disney, among others.

HBO Max will offer the premium cable channel's existing library of movies and TV series combined with a new set of original programming as well as popular older shows such as "Friends" and "South Park."

The company decided to charge $15 a month for the new product -- the same as basic HBO today -- to lure more viewers to an app that will form the foundation of WarnerMedia's subscription and advertising strategy. It is free for current HBO subscribers, though existing customers must proactively log into a new app.

A new challenge may be persuading budget-conscious consumers to splurge on a new service at a time of economic uncertainty because of the effect of the novel coronavirus.

The virus has also ground production of movies and television shows to a halt, meaning that the pipeline of original content for HBO Max will be slowed as it will for other entertainment platforms.

While Mr. Kilar is experienced in the streaming world, there may be a learning curve for other parts of the company reporting to him including the all-news channel CNN and WarnerMedia Sports, both of which are headed by Jeff Zucker. The Warner Bros. movie and television production studios as well as HBO and HBO Max will also report to him.

Mr. Kilar was CEO of Hulu from its formation in 2007 until 2013. Prior to that he held senior roles at Amazon including senior vice president of world-wide application software. He also co-founded the streaming service Vessel and was on the board of DreamWorks Animation.

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Write to Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com and Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 01, 2020 13:22 ET (17:22 GMT)

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