HBO

HBO/HBO Max EVP and head of communications Karen Jones is exiting the company after 23 years, she announced in a memo to staffers Thursday. Jones has been in this role since 2019, helping navigate HBO’s communications through ownership changes, the launch of HBO Max (which became part of her purview in 2020) and the COVID-19 pandemic.

As veteran media reporters Felix Gillette and John Koblin explain in their new book, It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO, HBO was born from journalism, a byproduct of Time Inc.’s plan to diversify its holdings. Their gossipy, cameo-padded reporting breezes through the improbable story of how a print media company invested in a scheme to bring a clearer television picture to certain neighborhoods, embraced satellites and discovered that original programming was a cheaper way to fill its slate than paying Hollywood studios.

An early top executive at the network believed that “the man of the house” paid for cable TV subscriptions. That mind-set affected HBO’s programming for decades.

Larry David’s comedy is the longest-running scripted series ever on the premium cabler.

The premiere of HBO’s House of the Dragon pulled in a record-setting audience on Sunday. The Game of Thrones prequel, which is set about 200 years before the previous series and focuses on the Targaryen family, drew nearly 10 million viewers across all platforms in the United States, HBO says. That’s the biggest series premiere in HBO’s history.

For decades, HBO has been an anchor of the cable portion of Television Critics Association’s press tour with the network’s signature three-hour block of wall-to-wall panels packed with big stars. This summer, for the first time in as long as anyone can remember, there will be no HBO presence at TCA in Pasadena. In fact, the entire newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery is skipping the upcoming press tour as the company is going through the integration process, including layoffs, with the next wave rumored to come during TCA.

Martin and Clarke give some behind-the-scenes details about the Game of Thrones sequel in the works, and Gwendoline Christie weighs in as well.

As HBO is preparing to launch of a Game of Thrones prequel series, the network also is exploring a potential sequel centered around one of the original series’ most recognizable characters, Kit Harington’s Jon Snow. The project is still in exploratory stages, sources said.

The Oscar-winning actress and director, following a prolonged round of negotiations, has been tapped to star in the fourth season of HBO’s True Detective. She will also be credited as an executive producer of the anthology.

AT&T, in its Wall Street swan song as an entertainment entity, reported solid subscriber pickup for HBO Max and HBO for the first quarter of 2022 on Thursday. The now-divested WarnerMedia unit was again a drag on profitability because of continued investments in HBO Max and the launch of CNN+ — reflecting a key reason AT&T spun it off.

HBO was hit with a class action lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that it shares subscribers’ viewing history with Facebook, in violation of a federal privacy law. A class action law firm, Bursor & Fisher, filed the suit in federal court in New York on behalf of two HBO Max subscribers, Angel McDaniel and Constance Simon. The suit alleges that HBO provides Facebook with customer lists, which allows Facebook to match customers’ viewing habits with their Facebook profiles.

HBO has pulled tonight’s premiere of The Larry David Story, a two-part documentary about the award-winning producer/writer and comedian, at David’s request. In a tweet on Monday, HBO Documentaries announced “The #LarryDavidStory on @HBOMax is being postponed. Instead, Larry has decided he wants to do it in front of an audience. Stay tuned for more info.”

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver returned Sunday for its ninth season, still the best that political late-night comedy has to offer. Forget the 20-odd Emmys it’s won, including its lock on the talk-show category six years running; Last Week’s cachet and influence are most readily seen in how many of its competitors have emulated its chief innovations: length and depth.

The Gilded Age will be back for a second go-round. HBO has renewed the praised period drama from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes for a second season. The series’ Jan. 24 premiere was HBO’s best Monday night debut since Chernobyl.

The pickup comes halfway through the show’s eight-episode second season and amid a big increase in viewership. The series created by Sam Levinson and starring Emmy winner Zendaya returned in January, almost 2 1/2 years after the first-season finale (a pair of special episodes aired in December 2020 and January 2021).

HBO Max and HBO have a combined 45.2 million U.S. subscribers, AT&T revealed in its 3Q earnings report Thursday. That’s down from the 47 million combined subs the WarnerMedia parent company reported for its premium cable channel and streaming service at the end of 2Q, and a loss the company saw coming after removing the HBO subscription option from Amazon Channels. But globally, the services have topped 69 million customers.

“If you are working on commercials or for HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, BET or another company that has a contract still in effect – you must keep working,” IATSE informed its members. “You will not be a scab!” (Image: HBO; IATSE; BET)