Latest in Richard Plepler

SPOILER ALERT: This post contain details about James Andrew Miller’s book Tinderbox, an oral history of HBO, which was published today.  On the eve of yet another corporate reframing, HBO has received its own Magna Carta with the publication of James Andrew Miller's Tinderbox today. Coming from the keyboard that…

EXCLUSIVE: Richard Plepler's Eden Productions has brought in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm co-producer Ashley Underwood as a development executive. Former HBO chairman and CEO Plepler formed Eden following his exit from the premium cabler in 2019. The company is under an exclusive five-year deal with Apple TV+ to develop…

ICM Partners literary agent Heather Karpas has left the agency to join Richard Plepler's Eden Productions as creative executive. Karpas, an eight-year veteran of the Publications department of ICM, will oversee development for Eden under its exclusive five-year deal with Apple TV+, encompassing series, feature films…

It’s official: former HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler has closed an exclusive deal with Apple TV+ for his newly launched Eden Productions. Under the five-year pact, he will develop and produce original series, feature films and documentaries for Apple through Eden. Plepler, who exited HBO at the end of February…

Three weeks after leading WarnerMedia’s HBO Max dog and pony show before investors, AT&T COO John Stankey was back on stage today in Hollywood talking streaming – past present and future. The first stop for the exec, who still also serves as WarnerMedia CEO, was the November 12 launch of Disney+. "They did a good job…

Former HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler is back with a new venture, a production company based at Apple. Plepler, who exited HBO at the end of February after three decades, had been exploring a lot of opportunities over the past several months. According to sources, he had not been interested in returning to the…

John Oliver half-seriously thanked Game of Thrones in a briskly funny acceptance of his fellow HBO show Last Week Tonight‘s fourth consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. “Thank you to Game of Thrones for the lead-in over the years,” Oliver said. “It’s been really great. It’s been so fun trying to figure…

Michael Fuchs, who was HBO's CEO in the early 1980s, was both innovative and famously argumentative with producers or with the press. I never got past the five minute mark in my conversations with Fuchs without a dispute flaring – I even kept a chart on the timing of our clashes. Fuchs didn't trust reporters who wrote…

David Levy, who is leaving his post as president of Turner after a nearly 33-year run at the company, sent a farewell memo this morning that brims with the executive’s trademark sales-and-sports brio. He recalled joining the company in 1986 as a 24-year-old account executive, savoring Ted Turner’s occasional New York…

The other shoe has dropped at WarnerMedia, with word emerging that Turner chief David Levy will exit. The news landed on the same day that HBO chief Richard Plepler also announced his exit. The two longtime executives have both been squeezed as the AT&T-owned company reconfigures its executive suite and refines its…

It’s an end of an era at HBO as longtime chairman and CEO Richard Plepler is leaving the company after three decades. He informed HBO staff of his decision in an internal memo (read it below). The move comes as parent AT&T has been accelerating the implementation of its plans for WarnerMedia under CEO John Stankey…

The Court of Appeals’ today rejected Department of Justice’s attempt to stop AT&T acquiring Time Warner, paving the way for AT&T to accelerate the implementation of its plans for WarnerMedia. The company already announced an upcoming streaming platform, which will include HBO Now. I hear WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey…