Talking to Casey Bloys for this edition’s TBI Interview, I had a sudden realisation that no one - not even the boss of HBO and a veteran of the business - knows quite how streaming will play out. Bloys was on fascinating form as he laid out the rationale behind Warner Bros. Discovery’s new streamer (see page 16) and he was frank in admitting that the ‘correction’ is not done yet.
The challenges facing Bloys’ company are probably similar, give or take a few billion dollars, to the issues aecting yours though, as cost-cutting begins to bite and delays, or just cuts, in commissioning filters down through the global business. There are positives, though: new players have come to town (check out page 20 for a deep dive on SkyShowtime with CEO Monty Sarhan) and there are ways to make sums add up, especially with some increasingly generous tax incentive schemes in Spain (page 22). We also flip the controls to find out how video game firms are tapping into the TV adaptation trend; dive into docuseries; uncover format gems from Southeast Asia; and explore how shortform factual is paying dividends in this rapidly evolving industry...
