HBO Max Chief Andy Forssell: Podcasts are Coming Soon to the Mobile App

If you’re an HBO Max subscriber and haven’t downloaded the mobile app, you’re about to get a few more reasons. The streamer is preparing to launch new features for iPhone and Android, including podcasts and shorter videos, that look to deliver a different kind of experience than the living room TV.

“We’ve been experimenting with whether to do something much different on mobile, and we’re having some fun with that,” HBO Max chief Andy Forssell said in an interview with Decider. “In the near term you’ll see more short-form content on mobile.”

Americans spend four hours a day on their mobile devices. Sixty percent of Gen Z consumers say they’re just as happy watching video on their phones as they are on TVs, and 300 million global consumers pay for music streamers — Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube and Tencent — that are putting increasing emphasis on podcasts and audiobooks.

“There’s a good use case for people to get more out of their HBO Max subscription,” Forssell said, “with time in the car or elsewhere when they can’t watch but they can listen.”

Mobile is one of several areas Forssell covered in his first interview since HBO Max parent company AT&T reported quarterly earnings last week and announced that HBO and HBO Max had reached 38 million combined subscribers — up from 33 million at the end of March — including 8.6 million on HBO Max.

Among the other topics:

• increasing personalization starting this week,
• an update on the Friends reunion special,
• a big movie drop coming November 1,
• a big-deal movie likely coming Christmas Day, and
• an update on the ad-supported tier coming in early 2021.

DECIDER: What is the status of HBO Max’s carriage discussions with Roku and Amazon?

ANDY FORSSELL: Those discussions are ongoing, and I can’t share any details. Roku and Amazon have been good partners in the past and will be good partners in the future. There are a lot of complexities, and I’m confident that we’ll work it out.

A majority of households who subscribe to HBO through their cable provider have not signed up for HBO Max, which is free to them. Millions of those subscribers have Roku or Amazon TVs in their living rooms. Has that been a significant limitation?

A lot of those households also have an Apple TV or other device, so we’re not blocked out of those living rooms. In some cases, we are. We’ve already exceeded our goals for 2020, and we’re very happen with the outcomes thus far even without those devices. Expanding distribution to those devices will help us accelerate the growth of the service.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said during his earnings call last week that HBO Max subscribers are spending 70 percent more time on the service than HBO subscribers did. What does that mean in terms of viewing behaviors?

That number is absolutely correct and it’s proving the thesis of HBO Max, which is: Double the content, make it attractive to more of the household than HBO has traditionally, and improve the product and the viewing experience. Subscribers are watching more of everything — film and TV, library and new things.

HBO has traditionally skewed older. Is HBO Max finding a younger audience?

We are definitely attracting younger viewers — younger viewers in traditional HBO households and younger households that were not traditional HBO subscribers. We’ve had to work harder to get younger viewers to watch the next thing because that’s a tougher audience to keep engaged.

HBO Max announced Comcast as a distribution partner when the service launched on May 27, but the HBO Max app still hasn’t launched on Xfinity X1 or Xfinity Flex. What’s the status?

We’re working on that, and I see daily reports on the progress. I can’t talk publicly about dates, but we’re going to get that app out very soon.

I’ve been using the new Chromecast for Google TV, which is a great platform with a great user experience. Are you hopeful that it will become the default interface for Sony, Hisense and other devices that run Android TV?

Google has nailed it for delivering probably the least expensive way for getting a good streaming experience, so I hope that continues to spread. We work closely with them, and I certainly agree with you that Chromecast is a great experience. About two-thirds of all viewing is on the big screen in the living room, and I expect that to continue.

Chromecast is the most widely available streaming device for holiday season that runs HBO Max. Are you working with Google for a deal to pay three months of HBO Max and get a free device or something like that?

I don’t have anything to announce right now, but that certainly makes a lot of sense for the holidays. We’re having those kinds of discussions across our hardware partners.

The featured titles at the top of my HBO Max account are The Witches, Chelsea Handler’s new comedy special, the Lovecraft Country season finale, and a few other things. Does every subscriber see those same titles?

There is a lot of similarity now, but you’ll start to see increasing personalization. You’ll start seeing some of that this week — more of a mix of editorial and data-driven presentation. We have at least one new build of the service every month, and we’ll have new personalization functionality built into every new build going into early 2021.

HBO Max is rotating a lot of films in and out of the catalog. You’ve got about 175 new film titles starting November 1. Why such a big influx now instead of at launch?

It’s a couple of things. First, Time Warner had licensed out many titles for multiple years prior to the acquisition by AT&T, so we’re adding more and more every month as the rights to those titles come free. Second, we’ve had a particularly strong response on films — we have an unparalleled movie collection and haven’t been loud enough about that — so we’re trying to add more films as we go.

Adding titles every month will also keep my recommendations from staying the same month after month.

And if you have a deep movie collection, which we do, that collection has to deliver for Scott Porch. What you see has be built for you and not for me. That catalog is phenomenal for both of us, but we’re probably interest in different parts of it.

The content hubs you have now — Studio Ghibli, Sesame Street, etc. — seems to have drifted lower down the interface. I haven’t found the hubs particularly helpful because I’m not interested in watching a lot of them. Will that feature start to become more dynamic?

It absolutely will. You may be seeing hubs lower in the interface because we’re doing some A/B testing on where it should sit on the page for different segments of the audience, and we’re starting to test more customization for the list of hubs and how that’s presented.

How important is it for you to differentiate HBO titles in the design of the service?

We’ve been clear in the product to differentiate HBO because it’s a strong brand with hard-won respect for quality in its premium content, and I think you’ll see us continue to be clear about that. One the other hand, we don’t want to be too precious about that; most of us want to watch a particular movie whether it came through HBO or we licensed it for HBO Max.

So when the The Flight Attendant, which looks pretty expensive, premieres in late November, do you want the interface to make clear that it’s not an HBO series?

I’m really excited about The Flight Attendant, and Kaley Cuoco is fantastic in this series. When you watch it, you’ll see that it’s a really good show that could have a big audience. It’s not second-tier or lower-quality than an HBO series, but it could reach a broader, younger audience than who a traditional HBO series would ordinarily appeal to.

HBO Max plans to launch an ad-supported tier next in 2021. Will that be the same user experience but with ads?

Ads are an incredible subsidizing force for consumers to trade off seeing some for a lower price, but the infrastructure and user interface will be the same.

Have you made any decisions on pricing? Will it be a lower price like Hulu or a free tier like Peacock?

We have not talked about that publicly. We think ads will be a subsidizing force but that this is still premium television. It’s premium TV.

Will the ad-supported tier come in the first half of 2021?

John Stankey has said that the ad-supported tier will come within a year of our launch and we launched in May 2020, so I think you can count on us beating that deadline.

HBO Max has a relationship with Criterion Collection and a big chunk of its catalog on the service. Are you working on making that an add-on where you could pay an extra X dollars a month and get the whole Criterion Channel in HBO Max?

We don’t have anything like that in the works. I ran programming at Hulu when that was the first service to license Criterion Collection exclusive, and I love the programming. We’ll certainly look at those options, but we don’t have anything immediate to talk about.

Will add-ons become part of the service’s DNA at all in the near term? Do you want to be able to add other services or other catalogs to the base service?

I certainly think there’s room for that. You have to keep the paradox of choice in mind: We as consumers are good at making decisions from a finite number of choices. We’re already going to have an ad-supported option, and we’ll be careful and methodical about keeping the buying decisions very simple.

HBO and HBO Max has invested in companion podcasts, but you haven’t put them into HBO Max’s mobile app. Is that something you’re thinking about?

It is. HBO has been doing podcasts for a couple of years, and the Chernobyl podcast in particular was fantastic. I don’t have a date to announce, but that will be a part of the mobile app.

There are licensing reasons why you can’t immediately bring CNN fully into HBO Max. Peacock is in a similar situation with MSNBC and CNBC but is putting Meet the Press and some other things on the service. How are you thinking about CNN?

CNN is a phenomenal, global brand, and we’d be crazy if we were not looking for ways to integrate it. We think that can be done in a way that is respectful of our cable distribution partners. We’ve got a lot of stuff on the drawing board but nothing to announce right now.

FX and Freeform have next-day episodes on Hulu. Is that something you’re thinking about with TBS and TNT?

That all falls under Ann Sarnoff in the Studios and Networks Group, and they’re thinking about how to make the best of their linear and SVOD, but we don’t have anything specific to talk about now.

Do you think you need a late-night show exclusive to HBO Max like what Peacock has with Wilmore and The Amber Ruffin Show?

SVOD overall has been too slow overall to adopt daily and weekly programming. We have John Oliver and Bill Maher that do very well on HBO Max as timely, weekly shows, and I think you will see us to continue to experiment.

Disney+ will premiere Pixar’s Soul on Christmas Day. There’s talk that Apple is pursuing the new James Bond movie, which could premiere on Christmas Day. Will you likely premiere something high-profile on Christmas Day?

[Pause.]

Sounds like I may have found something.

[Laughs.] I have nothing I can share right now. I have one specific thing in mind that I can’t talk about.

Tell me about Tenet. Has Warner made the decision yet whether that will go to PVOD first as you did with Scoob, or will that go directly to HBO Max?

This has been a title-by-title discussion. The Witches was supposed to be a theatrical release and is now available only on HBO Max. Studios are holding some titles because the think it’s worth holding, and it’s a complex decision for other titles.

Do you know, though, for Tenet.

We do. I can’t announce it now, but there is a defined timeline for that. Christopher Nolan has been pretty involved in that, but I can’t talk any more about it. Tenet is a phenomenal film, and it was a testing point for the theatrical window where it’s done really, really well. In this environment, decisions aren’t final until you execute, but we have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen.

Has the Friends special taped yet?

No, we haven’t taped that yet. Safety is a big consideration, and we’re working through that. We did The West Wing special and thought John Wells and his team did a phenomenal job on that both from an execution and a safety perspective. Everybody really wants to do the Friends special, and we will get that done.

Scott Porch writes about the TV business for Decider. He is a contributing writer for The Daily Beast and a podcast producer for Starburns Audio. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.