MOST INNOVATIVE
COMPANIES 2015
7. HBO
FOR
MAKING ITSELF THE BELLE OF THE STREAMING-TV BALL.
The premium cable network’s subscriber base grew more in 2014
than in any year in the last 30, thanks to its continued international
expansion, a string of new hit shows (Last Week Tonight WithJohn Oliver, Silicon Valley, True Detective), and CEO Richard Plepler’s deft maneuvering that
makes HBO the envy of the rapidly shifting media landscape. Now it is
unleashing its streaming service, HBO Go. Sometime this year, viewers will be
able to purchase access to HBO programming and archives, which the company
hopes will win it 10 million to 20 million new customers. Plepler has
been opening up the network for a while now. Witness AT&T’s offer from last
September: broadband, a year of Amazon Prime, and HBO Go for $39 a month. Last
April, HBO signed a surprising deal to license some of its shows to Amazon.
"I had a hunch that there were a lot of voters out there who were
undecided because they didn’t fully understand the range or the value of the
brand," Plepler says. "We want to work with our partners, but we also
want to work with new partners."
Plepler, a 22-year HBO veteran, drives innovation through groups
he calls Team B’s; it’s an idea he says he stole from an old CIA playbook.
"Team B’s were essentially groups of smart people inside the CIA
whose purpose was to challenge conventional wisdom and look at all options with
an open mind," he says. Attracting artists is more straightforward:
"When talent is treated with the love and respect that I think our culture
treats them with, that becomes very catalytic. They tell colleagues, ‘I just
had an experience there that was remarkable.’ "
BY NICOLE LAPORTE http://www.fastcompany.com/3039614/most-innovative-companies-2015/
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