Kathleen Finch, the outgoing chairman and CEO of U.S. Networks at Warner Bros. Discovery, said her company knows its audience very well — and knows how to make shows that will keep people watching for “a long, long time.”
The U.S. exec, passing the baton to chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Television Group Channing Dungey at the end of the year, spoke at Content London on Tuesday. She was probed on leveraging owning the Harry Potter IP ahead of the upcoming HBO Max reboot and getting fans excited across networks.
“At Food Network,” Finch beginned, “We do really, really well, and they’re very often around gingerbread houses and all these crazy spectacle shows. We had always wanted to do one with Harry Potter, and we got shut down every time we asked. So luckily, the merger happens, and suddenly we own Harry Potter.”
She continued, “We have created the Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking championship. We shot [in England] at the Harry Potter studio… And the show is amazing. They make these gigantic cakes, each one inspired by different Harry Potter images, sets, people. Those are the kind of opportunities that we love.”
It was confirmed in July that Finch, responsible for a group of more than 20 networks, including Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, TNT, TBS, OWN, Investigation Discovery and Adult Swim, would be stepping down in her role and looking to Dungey to keep everything in ship-shape order, something that Finch has no doubt over. “What we are very proud of at Warner Brothers is the fact that our networks are very genre-specific,” Finch said. “We know our audience. We know what they want, we know what they come for. We know how to make shows that will keep them watching for a long, long time. And there’s an art to them.”
One genre that the company has found people “can’t get enough of” is true crime: “Those things are like catnip for our streamer. We cannot get enough true crime. I mean, that is just doing so so well for us in the States, including celebrity true crime — I mean, anybody that may be bad that we know, we want to hear from you.”
But relationship shows have proved enduringly popular, too: “90 Day Fiance,” Finch mentioned. “We’ve got 12 spin-offs in multiple languages. It’s one of those things that just really, really, really works.”
She was also asked about the state of the industry, still suffering from the lingering ramifications of the historic Hollywood strikes and COVID-19, and in particular the death of cable. “Is the cable business going to grow? No, of course not… But for the millions and millions of people who still have cable in the U.S. — millions of people still have cable — they are watching in very large numbers, and it’s a hugely profitable business. It is a multi-billion dollar a year business. It’s not going to go away in the near future. Is it growing? No, but it’s not going to go away.”
Finch continued: “And one of the reasons that it’s so important, especially our company, is all the great content that we make on networks then goes to Max. So the first stop is the networks that are in my portfolio. But then it has long legs of life, and every different platform it goes to brings more money into the company. So there are lots of benefits to keeping building your business healthy. And ours is still a 50% margin, multi-million dollar business that’s slowing, but not dead.”
English (US) ·