AT&T contemplates cutting Game of Thrones episodes into 20-minute chunks for mobile devices
As we speak, telecom giant AT&T is in talks to acquire cable TV giant Time Warner for $85.4 billion. Time Warner, as you may know, is the parent company of HBO, so AT&T is effectively in talks to buy HBO. If this sale goes through, it would be a huge deal (the acquisition is currently being reviewed by the US Justice Department, and President Trump spoke out against it on the campaign trail), but we’re mainly concerned with one thing: Will it affect Game of Thrones?
The answer: not really but maybe. When talking about the deal at the 45th Annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson talked about his plans to start “curating Time Warner content uniquely for a mobile environment.” What does that mean? It means he’s considering changing Game of Thrones a bit so it works better when viewed on phones.
Basically, Stephenson said that a full 60-minute episode of the show might not be the best way to experience it on a mobile platform. “Maybe you want a 20-minute episode,” he said. “Let the content geniuses and creative geniuses think about this, but curate the content uniquely for a mobile environment.”
So if AT&T buys Time Warner, it wouldn’t alter the show, but it might order the episodes be chopped up and distributed on mobile devices.
Importantly, Stephenson clarified that he had no plans to restrict access to HBO shows. “You can’t think about taking [HBO’s] Game of Thrones, and you only are going to make it available to AT&T customers,” he said. “[T]hat’s crazy – you’d destroy the value of the media/entertainment business.”
If the sale does go through, we hope Stephenson drives value and maximizes synergy and all the other stuff corporate types do. Just don’t change Game of Thrones more than you have to. For the record, AT&T and Time Warner expect to close the deal by the end of the year, but nothing’s guaranteed.
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