A survivor of multiple mergers, Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content, seemed unfazed during the year-long saga of the sale of HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and its many twists and turns.
First, he had seen this movie before — Bloys was president of programming for HBO when the network’s parent company, Time Warner, was acquired by AT&T and chief of content for HBO and HBO Max when renamed parent company WarnerMedia was acquired by Discovery in 2022.
“You have to understand that I’ve been through two mergers, I don’t think there was an announcement that would have shocked me,” Bloys told Bloomberg’s Screentime on Thursday when asked if he was shocked by Netflix’s (ultimately unsuccessful) deal to buy WBD.
Second, he knew his worth. A 22-year veteran of HBO and one of the most universally admired television executives working today, Bloys has become synonymous with the brand, which is one of WBD’s most valuable assets.
He has a close-knit team of executives, including head of drama Francesca Orsi and head of comedy Amy Gravitt, who have both been at HBO just as long and have played key roles in its success, each developing a string of award-winning hits. They are expected to join Paramount with him, alongside HBO Max’s Sarah Aubrey, helming the Emmy-winning film. The Pitt And Tipsthe next Harry Potter series and also oversees the international. (Last summer, Orsi was approached for a top programming position at Amazon MGM Studios, but remained at HBO, in part because of WBD’s strict contract terms, but also as a sign that Bloys and his core team would likely move to Paramount.)
Bloys and his team will be ready to move in when the Paramount-WBD merger officially closes on Oct. 6, now that his Paramount counterpart, Direct to Consumer president Cindy Holland, left earlier this week, leaving Bloys as the presumed head of the combined streaming operation. (Bloys did not comment Thursday on exactly what his position would be, but hinted that HBO Max and Paramount+ could be consolidated or merged.)
In securing this as-yet-unspecified position, Bloys also had timing on his side. While the film studio Warner Bros. stumbled after a 2025 banner, HBO/HBO Max continued to do well throughout the sales process as Paramount’s CEO mulls possible post-merger executive appointments. It had strong showings at the 2025 and 2026 Emmys and every TV awards race in between and added several promising new series, Got prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, It: Welcome to Derry, Rooster, Task, I Love LA And The Chair company, all of which have been renewed and Emmy-winning limited series DTF St. Louis.
Then there was talk that Bloys might go to Netflix for a job or deal. It may have been a lot of lunch about nothing — Bloys’ meal with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was much talked about in March — but it underscored the fact that Bloys had options.
When asked yesterday on Screentime if there had been any discussions between Netflix and Bloys, Sarandos evaded the question, calling Bloys a “super talented guy” who “will be in a really good position wherever he goes.” Bloys also received praise from Disney President and Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden; she called him “an incredibly savvy executive” who “demonstrated, during a long period of disruption at Warner Bros., his ability not to reinvent himself but to evolve” at the same event.
Still, Bloys, whose contract runs through 2027, was Paramount CEO David Ellison’s lose. The contract reportedly included a stipulation that he report to the company’s CEO, which proved a key condition for Ellison to keep him (and by extension, Bloys’ senior team).
Since neither Bloys nor Holland would report to the other if and when their platforms were combined, there could only be one, as the saying goes, with Ellison “optimizing for HBO stability,” as Holland said in the farewell note to staff, highlighting the choice.
Bloys made a similar comment Thursday, saying he thought Ellison would “maintain what we’ve done” at HBO. (It could get two CEOs for the price of one, since Ellison named Mattel’s Ynon Kreitz as co-CEO, with all companies expected to report jointly to both.)
Widen the slate
For a decade, Bloys has been the steward of HBO as a home for premium storytelling.
“There are no plans to dilute the HBO brand in favor of an increasing volume of programming,” he said in 2018, when the AT&T acquisition was underway, adding that he and his team planned to do “nothing but great.”
Two mergers later, things have changed. He will preside over a combined streaming slate that mixes HBO’s prestige fare with CBS procedurals and next-day sitcoms, as well as Paramount+ originals, such as the Taylor Sheridan/101 Studios show slates (Landman, MobLand) and Tyler Perry (sisters) as well as the UFC.
For Bloys, this would be the next step in a widening of market opening that actually began ten years ago.
“In the 2015s, the idea of taking HBO and adding the Warner Bros. library was radical, it was ‘Oh my God, you’re going to have HBO next to it.’ Friends And Big Bang Theory And EMERGENCIES, how could you do that?'” he said Thursday. “A lot of despair, and I would say it was a very successful expansion of service.”
The process doesn’t always work; The addition of Discovery content to HBO Max was largely rejected by the public, Bloys admitted, so there is some caution about how Paramount+ and HBO Max programming would fit together (or side by side if they were bundled.)
“I was talking to someone earlier this week who told me that HBO and Paramount+ basically have the two most divergent customer bases and in many ways they don’t fit naturally,” Bloys said. “People have said to me, ‘Oh, okay, so the Taylor Sheridan stuff and HBO.’ That’s a version of what people have told us about HBO and the Warner Bros. library. People who watch HBO tend to like TV, tend to be TV consumers, and that doesn’t just mean HBO.”
Bloys also bred South Park, which is now streaming on Paramount+ but has enjoyed a long and successful run on HBO Max, proving compatible on both.
“We had South Park on our platform, one of Paramount+’s major properties. It worked so well that we sued them when they (sent special offers to P+),” he said Thursday.
Bloys has already taken steps in this direction with the HBO Max fare, which could provide a model for how it plans to expand the HBO brand for the combined streamer. This includes network style dramas such as The Pitt and the next How to survive without medesigned to appeal to a wide audience and return each year for seasons of 15 episodes, and Stuart fails to save the universe a spin-off of one of the biggest sitcoms in network history, CBS’ The Big Bang Theory.
Even if the Discovery content synergy didn’t work out, “I would say a better experience in terms of expansion was what we did with The Pitt” said Bloys. “This show has been so successful not only at the Emmys and not only in its performances, but it has actually expanded the number of people on HBO Max who tend to watch the library movies or series (and) are consumers of The Pittas well as certain HBO subscribers. So you’ve managed to expand it and you haven’t radically changed the value proposition.
There’s also some overlap in the two streamers’ original slates. Many Paramount+ series have received the green light from the Dutch regime, including Discretionstarring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning, are considered HBO-type shows that would fit either brand.
The combination of HBO Max and Paramount+ will bring the whole thing together Big Bang franchise: Stuart, the mothership and spin-off libraries Young Sheldon and the next day’s episodes of other spin-offs Georgie and Mandy’s first marriage, which airs on CBS. And speaking of CBS, Bloys started his career there and he also worked at HBO Independent Productions during the latter part of the hit CBS sitcom. Everyone loves Raymondthat the unit produced, giving him some experience in network programming for the masses.
Furthermore, he was able to successfully expand his scope and expertise. As comedy executive, he faced initial skepticism about his ability to handle drama when he succeeded Michael Lombardo as HBO’s president of programming in 2016. After proving himself there, Bloys overcame similar doubts about his ability to adapt to streaming when he was handed the reins of HBO Max, now home to hit originals such as The Pitt And successful acquisitions such as Passionate rivalry.
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