Monday AM Briefing: The Jason Kilar Farewell Press Tour Preaches Product Channel Fit
I returned to the Hollywood Breaks podcast last Friday (NOTE: I was last on it in August 2021). We had a fun conversation that covers territory about last week's Oscars broadcast that few else seem to have covered: specifically, how Will Smith is both an avatar and a figurehead for the Hollywood-Meets-Creator Economy given his embrace of social media over the past few years (which he discussed in a recent GQ profile from last November).
We dove deep into how “the slap” seemed to reflect Will Smith as someone lost in the limbo between the tightly controlled optics of Hollywood's past and the authenticity- and vulnerability-driven optics of the creator economy, (which I've argued may be Hollywood's future).
If you have been listening to or reading it, now-former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar’s farewell press tour has done an unusually good job of fleshing out the misunderstood details of his tenure. There are three notable interviews in particular:
- An interview with Vulture's Joe Adalian
- A 20 min. podcast interview with Puck's Matt Belloni, and
- An interview with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw
A quote from the Vulture interview about “the importance of the product, design and technology aspects of a streaming business model” is worth diving a little deeper into. Because, it is as strong a case for the business logic of the Product Channel Fit framework as I have read to date.
It also offers a helpful lens into whether the management structures of streaming services are a “tell” about their ability to survive over the next 24 to 36 months.
The Jason Kilar Farewell Press Tour Preaches Product Channel Fit
Adalian asked Kilar the question I’ve always wanted to ask:
Speaking of innovation, HBO Max took a lot of heat from consumers early on because the interface was often buggy and not always user-friendly. But it’s made massive ...