Jason Kilar, CEO of WarnerMedia, formalizes the plan to leave the company before the conclusion of the Discovery deal

Jason Killard, the former CEO of Hulu and Amazon, who has been CEO of WarnerMedia since May 2020, has announced plans to leave the company the day before the merger with Discovery.

In a note to employees today, the CEO confirmed his departure just days before the planned completion of the $ 43 billion merger. The exact date on which the combination will become official is unknown, but many experts suggest it could be a Friday, a week after the new stock transactions. Killarney’s last official day is Friday.

The CEO is expected to leave for almost a year. WarnerMedia’s parent company AT&T offered to turn WarnerMedia into a new Discovery-controlled unit in May 2021. The corporate banter period peaked during a secretly brokered deal when Kilar appeared in a long profile. Wall Street newspaper, positioning him as the long-term leader of the company. Less than two days after this article was published, it was revealed that Discovery CEO David Zaslav would be heading the new organization.

Despite it being written on the wall, the directors of AT&T, WarnerMedia or Discovery never confirmed Kilar’s specific path and always refrained from being questioned about her plans. Following initial rumors that the CEO was exploring his legal options after the transaction went blind, he settled and oversaw a period of strong financial performance and reorganization at WarnerMedia.

Notably, HBO Max found a foothold under Killard, who got involved in large part thanks to his streaming experience. The platform went bankrupt in May 2020 for various reasons, but Kilar soon negotiated key distribution deals with Amazon and Roku and embarked on a restructuring aimed at making the long-standing organic chart problem more consistent. Helped like a noisy series Heredity And ფ Iphoria And the release date of the Warner Bros. movies, the service ended in 2021 with 73.8 million global subscribers along with HBO Linear. Killard achieved its two main goals with HBO Max in 2021, ramping up its advertising level and expanding it to dozens of locations outside of the United States.

Kilar remained a very visible presence at WarnerMedia, appearing last week at a CNN + event at the company’s New York headquarters in Hudson Aards.

“Many feelings can be experienced at a time like this,” Killard wrote in a staff note, “but for me there is nothing greater or more lasting than the feelings of gratitude and love I feel for this team. company and this mission “.

Killar has repeatedly refused to offer any opinion on where she sees her future career opportunity. In addition to being the founding chief of Hulu, he also founded and managed a video startup, Vessel, which was acquired by Verizon and subsequently closed.

The executive merger provides one of the latest punctuation marks in AT&T’s $ 85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The deal, concluded in 2018 following a government antitrust challenge, ultimately proved to be a costly disaster and a confrontation with the company’s previous nightmare, an unfortunate alliance with AOL in the 2000s. Time Warner’s AT&T, plus the acquisition of DirecTV two years earlier had cost AT&T shareholders about $ 50 billion. Given the red ink and incredible debt load, AT&T chose to refocus on its core telecoms business and to move 30% into a new DirecTV unit owned by private equity firm TPG. The new entertainment unit carries a similar weight to AT&T shareholders, but Discovery is gaining operational control.

Here is the full Killarney note:

Squad –

The next transaction with Discovery is on its way, now is the right time to share with each of you that I will be leaving this amazing company.

So many feelings can be experienced at a time like this, but for me there is nothing greater or more lasting than the feelings of gratitude and love I feel for this team, company and mission. Professionally I have never been so complete. Professionally I have never been happier. This team, and what we have built together, is the reason. We lead the industry creatively. We have brought technology, product and design to the highest levels of the company. We work as a team, proudly and successfully reaching customers all over the world directly. It has been a great joy for each of you to look to the future and do so with confidence.

The joys are plentiful, particularly the walks and conversations I’ve had with numerous WarnerMedia team members, delving into existing issues, be it the historic Burbank lot, along the Hudson Yard Highline, and around Techwood and the CNN Center. , in our vast A archives, in any location of our game studios or in many other places where this team is literally changing the world. It seems to have been reported that when Jason calls for a ride, make sure you are wearing comfortable shoes!

For those of you who know me well (or follow me on Twitter), it’s no wonder I love our history and the footprints we have as a company around the world. I have done my best to visit and introduce as many of you as possible and to photograph my love for this team and company through social media. So when my wife Jamie and I were thinking about what we could independently do to adequately express our gratitude to each of you, we came up with the idea of ​​creating a series of artifacts from some of the photos I took. Mention this team and WarnerMedia. We invite each of you to visit this website and choose an image that resonates … from the cult water tower of Warner Bros., the magnificent Hudson Gardens, the virtual production set in Leavesden and more. An artifact with an image of this image (and a note of me on the back) will be sent to you in the next few weeks. We hope that this memorable smile will bring you and remember the important contribution we have made to the 99-year legacy of this extraordinary company.

Leading this team has been an honor of my life. My heart is very full and I am very grateful to each of you. There is no better team on the planet and I have enjoyed every last step as I travel to Burbank many more times this week with this team always in mind.

Jason