Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said box office hits “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad” hit the mark financially, but he acknowledged sympathies with many of the critics who gave those DC Comics movies mediocre scores.
At Goldman Sachs Communacopia, a three-day media conference in New York, Bewkes won some laughs from the room when he warned against listening to the critics too much, but gave credence to some of their complaints.
“We do think there’s a little room for improvement,” he said. “We can do a little bit better on the creative.”
Bewkes also seemed to agree with the
“The general heading would be that the DC comics characters and their loyal fanbase have a little more lightness in them than maybe what you’ve seen in those movies,” he said.
Bewkes gave the obligatory praise to Time Warner’s CNN for its “killer year,” giving credit to the election as well as its breaking news coverage and original series, but he spent a good part of his nearly hourlong session praising the virtues of streaming services, and the opportunities he believes they have created for Time Warner.
That includes Hulu, which Time Warner announced an investment in before its last earnings call. Bewkes said the proliferation of streaming services, with their user-friendly on-demand features and interfaces, will be a boon to those companies with premium content.
“This shift toward [video-on-demand] and multiplatform viewing that we’ve been expecting is now accelerating,” he said. “What that does is it puts our company in the position we intended it to be in. We think those shifts advantaged the companies that have the strongest brands, whether it’s CNN, whether it’s HBO, whether it’s Harry Potter.”
Bewkes said that the personalization capabilities of those internet-based distribution systems could also be a boon to advertisers. He mentioned that better targeting and dynamic ad insertion could allow for the reduction of loads over time, creating a better viewing experience and giving opportunities to advertisers.
And he also said that the shift from traditional cable packages to streaming services and “skinny” bundles does not mean a financial hit for Time Warner. The company’s cable channels are available on products such as Hulu, Sony’s PlayStation Vue and Dish Network’s Sling TV.
“We’ve been able to monetize those very effectively,” he said. “If subs move from here to there, it’s not a problem for us.”
However, he insisted Time Warner wasn’t trying to influence anyone to switch from a cable package to a streaming service or vice versa.
“We’re trying to package choices, not do something other than that,” he said.
Bewkes did not share subscriber data on HBO NOW, the premium cable network’s stand-alone streaming offering, but said he was pleased with the trajectory, and the fact that the product has made inroads into a different demographic than HBO’s cable subscribers.
“The viewership and engagement is up among those who are using it,” he said. “It’s also true that the subscribers that use HBO NOW are about a decade younger than the ones on linear. We thought this would happen. Most of the NOW subs are broadband only, which means we’re hitting who we’re targeting.”
Ultimately, Bewkes said it’s incumbent on a content provider or distributors to be more proactive in “getting its act together and providing more robust consumer experiences.”
“Over the long term, everyone involved in this would like to see a better subtrend than down 1 to 2 percent,” Bewkes said.
