Jon Snow lectures the men on the Night’s Watch, Daenerys squabbles with her advisers, Cersei scowls upon her throne — cut to black, end of episode. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson brought up the idea of optimizing Time Warner’s TV episodes for AT&T’s mobile experience, which he thinks would work better in 20-minute installments, at a conference Tuesday. AT&T is closing its deal for Time Warner, and figuring out how to optimize Time Warner’s entertainment for its preexisting customers. So Stephenson floated the idea that instead of Thrones’ languid volleying between multiple plotlines, mobile viewers could keep up with King’s Landing (or any show of their choosing) in bursts that take less than a full half hour. “I’ll cause [HBO CEO Richard] Plepler to panic,” Stephenson said, according to Variety. The AT&T head pushed the crowd to “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.” Maybe we want six-second episodes, played in a loop! Oh, wait.
