I first talked to John Stankey about three years ago, on the day that AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner was finally approved and he became the leader of the new WarnerMedia unit. It was an unexpectedly tense conversation, so I figured I’d toss the new overseer of HBO, Warner Bros. and the Turner networks a relative softball question to close our interview. What shows are you watching?
Silence. Like 10 solid seconds of silence. I thought something was wrong with the connection. Finally, as if consulting with a full publicity team or maybe his priest, Stankey allowed that he and his wife were big fans of Downton Abbey. Oh, and Westworld—HBO’s Westworld, too.
