HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys apologized to reporters Thursday after a recent report revealed that he and and senior vice president of programming Kathleen McCaffrey orchestrated the use of burner social media accounts to argue with TV critics who gave the network’s shows bad reviews.
“Those of you who know me know that I am a programming executive, very, very passionate about the shows that we decide to do, and the people who do them and the people who work on them. I want the shows to be great. I want people to love them. I want you all to love them. It’s very important to me what you all think of the shows,” Bloys told reporters during a Q&A session at a presentation of HBO and Max’s 2024 content slate on Thursday.
“So when you think about mindset, and then think of 2020 and 2021. I’m home working from home, spending an unhealthy amount of time scrolling through Twitter and I come up with a very, very dumb idea to vent my frustration.”
“Obviously, six tweets over a year and a half is not very effective,” he continued. “But I do apologize to the people who were mentioned in the leaked emails, texts. Obviously, nobody wants to be part of the story that they have nothing to do with.”
Bloys emphasized that he has since switched to direct messaging critics on social media when he finds something he takes issue with in a review to engage in a dialogue directly.
“I think that is a probably a much healthier way to go about this,” he added.
The practice was first unearthed via text exchanges reviewed by Rolling Stone, which found at least six tweets that were sent between June 2020 and April 2021.
Bloys and McCaffrey reportedly used what they referred to as a “secret army” to argue with TV critics both on Twitter and in the comments section of trade publications such as Deadline. All of the anonymous comments had to do with either HBO’s programming or leadership.
Some of the TV critics who were targeted included the New York Times’ James Poniewozik and Mike Hale, The Rolling Stones’ Alan Sepinwall and Vulture’s Kathryn VanArendonk.
Bloys’ comments come as Sully Temori, a previous temp for the company who became an executive assistant in 2017, plans to file a wrongful termination lawsuit, which will argue that he was harassed and faced retaliation and discrimination after disclosing his mental health diagnosis to his bosses. It also alleges that Temori was asked to perform tasks that were not related to his job – which is where the tweets and comments come into play.
HBO, Warner Media, McCaffrey and HBO’s head of drama Francesca Orsi will all be named in the lawsuit. Additionally, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and two producers for “The Idol” — the show Temori worked on from August of 2021 until his termination that same year — will be named in the suit.
While declining to comment on “select exchanges between programmers and errant tweets,” an HBO spokesperson told TheWrap on Wednesday that it plans to “vigorously defend against Mr. Temori’s allegations.”
“We look forward to a full and fair resolution of this dispute,” the spokesperson added. “In the meantime, we wish Mr. Temori, a former HBO employee, well in his future endeavors.”
