A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

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Is HBO struggling?

The long-term consequences of the Hollywood strikes are being felt

Is HBO struggling? The long-term consequences of the Hollywood strikes are being felt

Over the decades, the name HBO has become synonymous with prestige TV. Its catalog features legendary productions that have redefined the very concept of television series, such as Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, Euphoria, or Sex and the City, among many others. Over the past twenty years, it has often had multiple series nominated for the Golden Globes or other prestigious awards. But recently, the trophy machine seems to have stalled: its series have ceased to be as groundbreaking as they once were despite increased budgets, productions like The Last of Us and True Detective: Night Country have divided audiences, while a series like The Idol turned out to be a colossal flop, and the latest series Dune Prophecy failed to become the gold mine it was expected to be. At the 2024 Emmys, the most important awards dedicated to American TV, HBO came in third, receiving 14 awards – the lowest number since 1998. Similarly, at the latest Golden Globes, it failed to receive nominations in the “Best Drama Series” category, which it had dominated since 2021. This apparent moment of crisis for HBO was, however, somewhat anticipated. After the conclusion of one of the most critically acclaimed series in recent years, Succession, HBO has struggled to find a new hit capable of captivating or influencing pop culture as a whole—except perhaps for The White Lotus.

The series with which it won the most awards at the 2024 Emmys, Hacks, did not achieve the desired viewership levels. Similarly, The Regime – Il palazzo del potere, written by one of the creators of Succession and starring Kate Winslet, fell short of general expectations, while the second part of The Jinx, a docuseries highly acclaimed about a decade ago, garnered virtually no attention. Neither The Franchise nor The Sympathizer performed well. Additionally, the number of users on HBO Max—the production house’s streaming platform—remained almost unchanged in 2024 compared to the previous year and is still relatively small. For HBO, the only successful productions have been Chimp Crazy, House of the Dragon (which lost many supporters after a lackluster and diluted second season), and The Penguin—which was initially planned as a standalone series but later had a second season announced.

Why is HBO struggling?

The issue, as noted by the New York Times, is more widespread: not only has the channel’s parent company accumulated $40 billion in debt, but amidst the streaming wars, Hollywood’s identity crisis, and an audiovisual entertainment world evolving toward new content but not new stories, a perfect storm is forming where being the king of prestige TV is no longer enough. Another set of problems stems from a more abstract situation—namely, with an increasingly fragmented user base and a certain lack of series capable of becoming global cultural phenomena, the network has lost the cultural centrality it once had. Efforts to adapt The Last of Us and Dune Prophecy, for instance, achieved great results but fell short of expectations, while The White Lotus became a global phenomenon but is perhaps relegated to a more intellectual segment of the market, as Mike White’s series is far less mainstream than a major fantasy saga.

HBO has attributed its current slump to the recent major Hollywood strikes. The new seasons of two highly popular productions, The White Lotus and The Last of Us, which could have salvaged HBO’s somewhat disappointing 2024, were postponed due to the strikes and are now set to release in February and April, respectively. Nonetheless, the 2023 work stoppage affected virtually all major production companies equally. The New York Times points out that this is not the first time a potential crisis for HBO has been discussed: when The Sopranos ended, there was talk of "HB-Over," and the same happened with the conclusion of Game of Thrones. Responding to this trend, HBO head Casey Bloys emphasized that at the time, the production company had nothing in the pipeline to bet on, whereas this time there are interesting new developments on the horizon. One of these could be the Harry Potter series, set to release in May 2026, along with the long-awaited third season of Euphoria, which is finally expected to begin filming after numerous production difficulties.