Lorin Williams February 19th, 2023 - 10:39 AM
This weekend begins what has been described as an “experiment” by Warner Bros. Discovery with some of its legacy HBO titles. According to Comicbook, the network will air edited versions of some of their original HBO series on owned cable networks TBS and TNT. This was first reported by Variety.
The two series included in this new sharing of content are the fantasy series, True Blood, and the tech comedy Silicon Valley. Comicbook reports both remain available to stream on HBO Max, but these new airings – full of commercial cuts and added edits – will air in absence of live sports for the media conglomerate. Previously HBO had aired edited versions of dramas The Sopranos and Sex and the City on cable.
“We have an enviable arsenal of networks and assets which gives us flexibility and allows us to put our impressive content library to work on platforms where it can attract new audiences,” Chairman and Chief Content Officer of WBD’s U.S. Networks Group, Kathleen Finch, said in a statement via Comicbook. “On any given night 30% of the available cable audience is watching one of our networks – on average that’s more than 86 million viewers a week – so our ability to move content around and promote to and engage that huge audience strengthens our hand in an evolving business.”
Saturday evening, TNT aired the premiere episode of True Blood. The fantasy series starring Anna Paquin (X-Men, American Underdog) and Stephen Moyer (The Gifted, After We Fell) was set in the southern heat of Louisiana where fairies, witches, and vampires roamed amongst mere mortals. The show will fall on a regular schedule of Monday evenings at 10 p.m. on TNT. True Blood ran for seven seasons.
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Start-up tech comedy Silicon Valley premieres Sunday evening on TBS at 10 p.m. and will remain at that schedule moving forward. The show followed a group of computer programmers hoping to strike it rich in the tech world and starred Thomas Middleditch (Replicas, B-Positive), T.J. Miller (The Emoji Movie, Deadpool), and Kumail Nanjiani (The Lovebirds, Marvel’s Eternals). The series ran for six seasons. See the series announcement post from TBS’ Instagram below.
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This is the latest development with HBO IP on a different platform other than HBO Max. Warner Bros. Discovery recently sealed deals to send new and old content to FAST networks in an attempt to save money from canceled projects. This experiment also comes after canceling all original scripted programming on TBS and TNT, with the completed fourth and final season of Snowpiercer not airing this year.
