Given HBO’s status, you would possibly suppose that Warner Bros. Discovery would wish to preserve the premium channel’s title connected to its new streaming platform.
As you’ll learn under, nevertheless, the media firm has its causes for reworking HBO Max right into a platform merely titled Max.
Max has been within the works for so long as Warner Bros. Discovery has been a company entity. Longer, even. In March 2022, weeks earlier than WarnerMedia spun off from AT&T to merge with Discovery, execs have been planning one streaming platform with content material from each HBO Max and Discovery+, as Variety reported on the time.
And on Tuesday, May 23, that imaginative and prescient will turn into a actuality with the launch of Max. Here are the need-to-know particulars concerning the new platform.
Why is HBO Max turning into Max?
HBO Max is rebranding as Max to emphasise its breadth of content material, as JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s head of streaming, defined throughout a presentation in April. “Max is where consumers can finally say, ‘Here’s a service that not only has something for everybody in my household, but something great for everybody in my household,’” Perrette mentioned, per CNBC.
Plus, taking the “HBO” off the “Max” makes it clear that the streaming platform isn’t simply geared towards adults. “We all love HBO,” Perrette mentioned. “It’s a brand that’s been built over five decades to be the edgy, ground-breaking trend-setter for entertainment for adults. But it’s not exactly where parents would most easily drop off their kids. Not surprisingly, the category hasn’t met its true potential on HBO Max.”
The rebranding is at all times a manner of “preserving and protecting” HBO as “the most iconic trailblazing brand in entertainment,” Perrette mentioned on the presentation, based on The Hollywood Reporter.
“HBO is not TV. HBO is HBO,” he reasoned. “It needs to stay that way, which is why we will privilege it in the product experience and also not push it to the breaking point by forcing it to take on the full breadth of this new content proposition.”
What will probably be out there?
The new platform “brings all the iconic programming that you love about HBO Max together with an even deeper library of crave-worthy genres like true crime, reality, food, comedy, and more — all for the same great price,” Max says on its touchdown web page.
Specifically, Max could have all of HBO Max’s choices — together with Max Originals and TV collection and flicks from HBO, Warner Bros., the DC Universe, Cartoon Network, Looney Tunes, Adult Swim, and the Turner library — in addition to favorites from the Discovery household — together with content material from Discovery Channel, TLC, HGTV, Food Network, ID, and Magnolia Network.
If I already subscribe to HBO Max, will I get Max?
Max says that each one HBO Max subscribers will get entry to the brand new platform. If you might have HBO Max put in in your system, the app will both replace to Max routinely or immediate you to obtain the brand new app after Tuesday’s changeover.
If you get HBO via your cable or satellite tv for pc TV supplier, you should still get entry to Max at no additional value. Max has already revealed a number of the suppliers via which the streaming platform will probably be out there — AT&T, Cox, Cricket, DIRECTV, Dish, Hulu, Optimum, Prime Video Channels, Spectrum, Verizon, Xfinity, and YouTube TV — and notes {that a} full listing of suppliers is coming quickly.
Will the worth stay the identical?
Max is protecting the 2 subscription plans HBO Max at present gives. One is an ad-supported plan for $9.99 per 30 days or $99.99 per yr, which permits streaming in high-definition on as much as two units without delay. The different is an ad-free plan for $15.99 per 30 days or $149.99 per yr, which permits the identical sort of streaming and provides subscribers as much as 30 offline downloads.
In addition, Max may even provide an Ultimate Ad-Free plan for $19.99 per 30 days or $199.99 per yr, which permits streaming in 4K on as much as 4 units without delay and provides subscribers as much as 100 offline downloads.
Current HBO Max subscribers will have the ability to entry their present plan options for at the very least six months after the changeover, and their profiles, settings, viewing historical past, “Continue Watching,” and “My List” alternatives may even switch over to Max, based on Variety.
Will Discovery+ nonetheless be its personal platform?
Discovery+ “will continue as a stand-alone service,” based on the streaming platform’s web site. (Discovery+ subscribers, nevertheless, is not going to get free entry to Max like HBO Max subscribers will.)
Originally, Warner Bros. Discovery deliberate to close down Discovery+ as soon as the mixed platform launched, however by this February, the corporate deserted these plans. “Our strategy is: ‘No [subscription] left behind,’” WBD CEO David Zaslav mentioned on a fourth-quarter earnings name that month, per Deadline. “We have profitable subscribers that are very happy with the product offering of Discovery+ Plus. Why would we shut that off?”
Zaslav did word, nevertheless, that “many of those people are going to want to move up to a bigger product, more robust with a bigger offering.”