HBO Max chief warns of TV content bubble burst amid Paramount merger

HBO and HBO Max content chairman Casey Bloys said the television industry is entering a period of contraction after a years-long surge in scripted series production. Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, Bloys noted that the number of shows being produced has fallen from around 600 to about 400, describing the reduction as a "catastrophe" for the sector.

"We are an industry in disruption, we used to compete against people who were selling cable subscription or advertising, main product was video entertainment. We are now competing against companies that are in very different spaces, have different economics," Bloys said.

He added that the oversupply of scripted series was unsustainable, with many projects greenlit without a clear path to monetization. "A bubble has some benefits on the way up in terms of people learning on shows because there’s so much work. The downside is really painful," he said.

Bloys declined to comment on the exact structure of the upcoming combined Paramount+/HBO Max operation, but suggested a bundled offering could be plausible, pointing to the success of the HBO Max-Disney bundle. "I don’t want to comment on what is going to happen or anything like that, but I would point to the HBO Max-Disney bundle, which has been very successful. So, could you see something like that happening? That would make a lot of sense," he said.

He praised Paramount CEO David Ellison, saying the new leader is "very, very excited, very respectful of what the HBO team has done" and is expected to maintain the company's achievements. Bloys remained optimistic about the future, encouraging people to consider careers in entertainment, describing the work as "a lot of fun" and expressing hope that the industry will find "some certainty, some calmness" after the disruption.