Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: AT&T, dc comics, dc entertainment, game of thrones, HBO, time warner

AT&T CEO Wants To Cut Game Of Thrones Episodes To Twenty Minutes So They Stream Better After Time Warner Purchase

If all goes well for telecommunications giant AT&T, it will swallow fellow corporation Time Warner whole and emerge an even fatter, more powerful monster than ever before (metaphorically speaking, of course).  Assuming they are able to close that $85 billion deal and gain control of beloved intellectual property producers like DC Comics and HBO, CEO Randall Stephenson (no relation to Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson… we think) has some interesting plans for popular series Game of Thrones: shave its episodes down by about 40 minutes to make them stream better on AT&T phones. Stephenson's plans were revealed in a report on Variety.

"I'll cause Plepler to panic," Stephenson said at a conference, referring to HBO CEO Richard Plelpler. "Think about things like 'Game of Thrones.' In a mobile environment, a 60-minute episode might not be the best experience. Maybe you want a 20-minute episode."

Oh, we're thinking about it. And we're wondering if the same concept could be applied to George R. R. Martin's novels.

Stephenson was careful not to violate any anti-trust laws in his speech, assuring everyone that "You're not going to take 'Game of Thrones' and make it available only to AT&T customers. That's crazy. That would destroy the value."

Phew! It's a good thing that Plelper made such a promise, since promises are what we'll have to rely on once Donald Trump's new FCC chief, [Verizon Lawyer Guy], does away with net neutrality regulations.

Now, all that's left is for Trump's Justice Department to apply the careful scrutiny its known for to the AT&T/Time Warner deal and approve it so that Stephenson can go on to make all of our favorite entertainment products better, as defined by mass consumption metrics rather than creativity. Yay!

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