WarnerMedia’s Streaming Service Wants to Fight Netflix with Quality, not Quantity

The streaming wars are heating up, and WarnerMedia is hoping that they can knock out Netflix by focusing on quality over quantity. WarnerMedia’s entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt opened up about his company’s streaming strategy during a conversation at the Cannes Advertising Festival with guest Laura Dern and moderator Radhika Jones. As Quartz reports, Greenblatt “threw shade” at WarnerMedia’s most famous competitors. “Just because you increase the volume, doesn’t mean you’ve increased the number of really talented people in the world who can actually produce these shows,” he said, before outlining how WarnerMedia’s upcoming OTT service would feature “the best of what we have.”

Ever since Netflix entered the original programming game, there’s been a feverish push from all corners of media to compete in original streaming content. This year, Disney will unleash its highly anticipated Disney+ platform and Apple will debut a slate of star-studded originals. Hot on those mega media players’ heels, WarnerMedia will launch its own stand alone streaming service in early 2020.

“We’re coming into it with a service of our own, which is a little bit different than Netflix, but we hope to be in the same space,” Greenblatt told the crowd. “We have gathered all of the assets of WarnerMedia, which include so many different brands from Warner Bros. films to HBO to the Turner networks to CNN, DC Comics, Adult Swim, Boomerang…Looney Tunes. There’s a lot of brands within this company, and we’re bringing them all together in a new service that’s going to debut after the first of the year.”

Anchoring that portfolio will be HBO’s already successful programming library. Greenblatt noted that since AT&T acquired the premium cable channel, plans had been made to increase the network’s programming output. He also said they would be making additional original programming aimed at demos not “typically” served by HBO: kids, young adults, and “millennials.”

Greenblatt admitted that WarnerMedia’s streaming service wouldn’t debut with Netflix’s 50,000 hours of programming, but something closer to 10,000. Greenblatt joked, “Call me crazy, I think that’s a lot of programming.”

Still, he stressed that “what we’re trying to do is curate the best of what we have so that we’re not just putting 50,000 hours out there and good luck to finding what you want out of it. We’re trying to put the best of the best out there.”

Greenblatt’s comments this week echo the plans that Kevin Reilly, President of TBS & TNT, and Chief Creative Officer of Turner Entertainment and WarnerMedia Direct-to-Consumer outlined in his Executive Session at Winter 2019 TCA. Reilly also went so far as to namecheck many of the high-profile titles consumers could expect to find on this new streaming service. A few that he mentioned were Scooby-Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Katy Keene, Rick & Morty, Aquaman, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Annabelle, Caddyshack, Casablanca, A Star is Born, Wonder Woman, Game of Thrones, and even Anthony Bourdain’s CNN docuseries.

One title Reilly suspiciously kept mentioning? Friends. The NBC show was produced by Warner Entertainment and for the past few years, WarnerMedia has enjoyed a lucrative licensing deal with Netflix. Friends is often cited as one of Netflix’s most popular library titles, and Reilly was asked point blank if WarnerMedia might consider yanking Friends off Netflix. While some industry experts have pointed out that the money parent companies could lose by ending these licensing deals with Netflix is too great to miss out on, Reilly seemed to tease WarnerMedia was considering doing just that.

Reilly told reporters: “I think you can expect that sort of the crown jewels of Warner will ultimately end up on the new service. So pulling [Friends] away? [I]t certainly is something that we’re going to be looking to do. And I think for the most part, sharing destination assets like that, it is not a good model to share them. My belief is that they should be exclusive to the service.”

If WarnerMedia does pull Friends off Netflix, it would be a bold move that would signal how cutthroat the streaming wars have become. Another signal that WarnerMedia means business? This week Deadline reported that they are close to signing super-producer J.J. Abrams to an exclusive contract. Putting the astronomical figures they are reportedly offering Abrams aside, the deal would effectively cut Abrams off from pursuing future projects with other streaming outlets, most notably Apple. Already, Abrams has proven himself to be one of the most coveted creators in the streaming realm. He’s in the process of producing high-profile projects with Hulu, Apple, and WarnerMedia’s own HBO. Abrams would be also be only the second major deal of this kind with Warner; the other being WB Television’s Greg Berlanti.

As more major media companies bet big on their own streaming services, the question remains: will consumers actually care enough to spend their money on all these different services?