Embattled WarnerMedia CEOJason Kilar, who by all accounts made the unilateral move to release all of Warner Bros’ 2021 movies day-and-date on HBO Max to the consternation of internal and external shareholders, has been getting a lot of press lately. (This is what happens when you “disrupt the paradigm,” or something.) But one of the more pressing questions in regards to this whole HBO Max takeover strategy is – when will the platform be on Roku devices?
To explain, Roku is the clear industry leader when it comes to what is referred to as “connected TVs.”It has 43% of the market share, handily trumping both Apple and Amazon (which recently signed its own deal with HBO Max after months of similarly fraught handwringing). That is a huge percentage of the marketplace for HBO Max to simply not engage with (and, truth be told, HBO Max’s meager subscriptions numbers suggest that it could really use the Roku boost). There have even been those who have figured out a workaround, using the latest Roku models anda combination of Apple AirPlay, Androids or Windows devices. But wouldn’t it be nice to just have HBO Max on your Roku without jumping through weird hoops? Of course.
With the imminent release ofWonder Woman 1984on Christmas Day, a title that is supposed to serve as the beginning of WarnerMedia’s grand and miraculous 2021 release date experiment, Vox’sPeter Kafkaquizzed Kilar about the Roku holdup.
After Kilar jokingly tries to pass the buck to Roku (“Feel free to call Roku”), he states that they’re still actively working on it. “We are talking to them daily, and they are talking to us daily,” Kilar explained. As with Amazon, Kilar said, “It’s very clearly in the interest of Roku, and WarnerMedia, to find common ground here. It benefits both companies — and, even more importantly, fans want it. Usually when you have those dynamics at play, things get figured out. We’re investing a lot of time and energy and thoughtfulness in this one.”
And, unsurprisingly, it’s the financial deal that is the hold up, not any sort of technological limitation (more specifically early reports indicated that HBO Max was unhappy with the percentage of the overall subscription price that Roku would be pocketing). Still, if a deal can be worked out in the next couple of weeks, we could still see Wonder Woman swing her golden lasso onto our Roku devices on Christmas day. “The technical aspects of this are not difficult. We signed an agreement with Amazon, and days later we were live with our app on all the Fire devices. The technology is not the constraint,” Kilar said.
In other words, there is still hope, however fleeting, that they’ll figure all this out ahead ofWonder Woman 1984and 2021’s insane onslaught.
