6 executive summary theibcdaily The producers Linda
Jensen CEO, HBO Europe Region: Europe
Interview by Carolyn Giardina L
ocally-produced content and the HBO Go broad- band subscription service are two top initiatives for HBO Europe’s CEO Linda Jensen. “Our goal is to push them both out over time until we have a strong technology play, coupled with a strong content play—and one that has local legs to it as well. It is the combination that we are really after.” HBO Europe (which was rebranded from HBO Central
Europe in May) runs specialised feeds in all of its markets with the exception of the Adriatic region in Bulgaria. “That market is too small to enjoy the economies of scale,” she says, noting that 2012 is the first year HBO has had content in production in each of Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary. “What keeps me excited is the ramp-up in original produc- tion,” says Jensen who was president of MTV Russia, based in Moscow, before joining HBO in 2005. “Obviously we have the Hollywood majors, HBO content, and a lot of great series that doesn’t originate at HBO, but we also buy some key local content. We produce documentaries and we are producing some fiction … and the reason is because content lives or dies locally. For the long term, we think it is really important for the stickiness and weight of the brand to
content lives
develop a meaningful library of programming that uses local talent and plays a role in local culture.”
Acknowledging that “one size doesn’t fit all,” Jensen believes HBO’s subscription model, coupled with a multi-device strategy, is “robust.” “The subscription model for this is great. You have HBO Go on your devices and linear TV which will provide the right combination that is a really easy thing for the end user to grasp.”
or dies locally
But she also notes that, at this early stage, the multi-screen world still has many challenges. “How do I decide where I need to be? How many consumers are going to be the right number for me to want to build for a given device? How am I going to service this demand?”
She also questions how easy it will be for the consumer to find online content in future. “Are they going to have to go to fifty different apps to get their broadband content? How are they going to organise that? Or pay for it? If it is a combination of subscription and non-subscription, how does that look? There are a number of critical questions with which the industry has barely got to grips.”