HBO, Warner Bros. Boss Doesn’t See Omicron Disrupting Show Production

WarnerMedia, a unit of

AT&T Inc.,

T 2.22%

owns the Warner Bros. movie studio, the HBO Max streaming platform and cable channels including HBO, TNT and TBS.

Mr. Kilar said he was encouraged by the quicker recovery and milder effects of the Omicron strain being seen in many parts of the world. The Delta variant did lead to slowdowns in production last summer—affecting, among others, “House of the Dragon,” the much-anticipated prequel to HBO’s smash hit “Game of Thrones,” and Hulu’s comedy “Woke”—but nothing as crippling as the 2020 shutdowns.

The entertainment industry has a series of Covid-19 protocols already in place, including frequent testing and efforts to keep unvaccinated people apart from actors, directors and other top-tier talent.

Studios and the unions that represent the bulk of entertainment industry workers also agreed that an individual production can require vaccinations—but that isn’t an industrywide standard. The current short-term agreement between studios and production companies and the unions regarding protocols expires later this month.

The number of shows and movies that have had to halt production because of Omicron has been relatively small so far, likely because many were heading into their holiday breaks when Omicron cases started to rise.

Shows that did shut down include

Netflix’s

“The Crown,” which stopped production earlier than its scheduled holiday break because of an outbreak of Covid cases. The series, which is shot in the U.K., resumed production this week, according to a Netflix spokesman.

More recently, late-night talk-show hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers said they were recovering from Covid-19. Both NBC shows tape in New York City, which has been hit particularly hard by the Omicron strain. Mr. Fallon is back on TV, while Mr. Meyers plans to be back on Monday, he said Tuesday on Twitter.

Separately, AT&T said its HBO unit, which includes the direct-to-consumer streaming service HBO Max, finished 2021 with 73.8 million subscribers world-wide. That total was higher than the company’s target of 70 million to 73 million subscribers.

WarnerMedia doesn’t disclose how many stand-alone HBO Max subscribers it has, or break down subscribers by region. Mr. Kilar said growth has been strong in the U.S., Latin America and Europe. HBO Max is available in 46 countries.

AT&T is in the process of merging its WarnerMedia entertainment assets with programming behemoth

Discovery Inc.

to create a separate company.

The deal is expected to close later this spring. Discovery CEO

David Zaslav

will helm the new entity, dubbed Warner Bros. Discovery. Mr. Kilar has previously said he would stay with WarnerMedia through the closing of the deal. He declined to comment on any future plans.