A year ago, Hulu announced that it had hired Joel Stillerman away from AMC to expand the streaming platform’s slate of original programming.
On Friday, Hulu announced that the chief content officer was leaving the company.
The departure of Stillerman, who worked on The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul while at AMC, was part of a broader reorganization at the Santa Monica company. There has been some tumult in the upper ranks at Hulu, which saw its chief executive, Mike Hopkins, depart in October to become the head of Sony’s television division. Randy Freer, the former COO of Fox Networks Group, replaced Hopkins—who had hired Stillerman—and recent reports suggest that Freer and Stillerman didn’t get along.
Following Stillerman’s departure from Hulu, the company’s chief content officer role will disappear. Craig Erwich, Hulu’s senior vice president of content, will oversee original programming. Tim Connolly, Hulu’s SVP of partnerships and distribution, and Ben Smith, SVP of experience, will also depart the company. Additionally, CMO Kelly Campbell will assume more responsibility, Jaya Kolhatkar will become Chief Data Officer, and Dan Phillips will become CTO.
Hulu is co-owned by Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, and 21st Century Fox, which itself agreed to be acquired by Disney earlier this year. (If Disney prevails, it would become Hulu’s majority owner.) That complicated ownership structure, rather unlike rival Netflix, has been characterized as a drag on the company’s ability to make decisions.
Hulu now reaches more than 20 million subscribers, and its service has expanded to include live television, more original programming (e.g. The Handmaid’s Tale), and deeper reserves of popular TV shows including 30 Rock and E.R. But Hulu remains unprofitable—almost $1 billion in the red last year—as it battles Netflix, Amazon, Google, and Time Warner-owned HBO for market share.
“Hulu has an enormous opportunity to lead the media and advertising industries into the future,” Freer said in a statement.
