New HBO boss Robert Greenblatt: “I don’t want to just come in and upend everything and destroy what they’ve built"

The New York Times

Greenblatt, the former NBC Entertainment chairman, is a theater junkie who was responsible for the era of live TV musicals on network TV. As The New York Times also notes, he has an 1898 Steinway grand piano in his office, he was an investor in Hamilton and he's friends with Dolly Parton. Greenblatt says he was first approached to take over as head of HBO and Turner, as well as WarnerMedia's new streaming service, last fall, shortly after stepping down from NBC. “I was immediately excited about it,” he said. “Though not undaunted by it. You know from my history I like a challenge.” Greenblatt also has an HBO past -- he produced one of the pay cable channel's biggest hits, Six Feet Under. "I felt the HBO glow way back then," he said. He then began working for Showtime, where he was responsible for hits like Weeds, Nurse Jackie and Dexter, starring Six Feet Under alum Michael C. Hall. He was at Showtime when, in 2010, he was tapped to rescue NBC, which was recovering from the Conan O'Brien-Jay Leno mess. Greenblatt led NBC as it went from the last place network to first place. Greenblatt says he's already given HBO’s programming president Casey Bloys a vote of confidence. As for expanding the network's programming, he says: "The Monday night thing, I haven’t thought much about. The scheduling of these networks are always tricky, less so in the modern age, with streaming platforms and watching things when you want. There’s probably too much programming for Sunday, and maybe Monday makes sense.”

ALSO:

• Greenblatt says HBO's program volume "is going to increase but it’s not going to be massive": "We can’t really compete with Netflix in that way and we don’t know that it’s really necessary"
• Greenblatt says he won't mess with HBO's smash hits or its staff: "There won’t be massive layoffs at all. I want HBO to flourish. We can run it slightly more economically without throwing the baby out with the bath water."
• Greenblatt on keeping HBO and Turner's brands distinct: "Once shows go on to the streaming platform, I'm not sure that brand identity is that important because they're going to go into the shared space. That's more important for the linear experience. We know what HBO's brand is and I want to make sure that Turner's brands don't interfere with that or bump up against it too much because I don't know that that's necessary."