Since the middle of this year we know that HBO Max is in serious financial trouble. In August, we detected that they were removing movies and series from their catalog to prevent their debts from being even higher. These debts were what led Warner Bros (owner of HBO Max) to merge with Discovery to try to save the company . However, just getting rid of the content is not enough and that is why HBO Max will close in 2023 and its catalog will become part of Discovery +.
Now, until now we understood that the platform where we will see the HBO Max content would be Discovery +, but new rumors indicate that this will not be the case. A CNBC report has revealed that the new platform that will have the content of HBO Max and Discovery + will be called simply “Max” , although it is not yet final. Internally, the code name of the platform is “BEAM”.
Why the union of HBO Max and Discovery + could be called “Max”
According to the report, the reason why the platform that joins HBO Max and Discovery+ will be called Max is because of the wide variety of content they want to offer . The company does not want to use a name that in one way or another overshadows the programming of Discovery, DC Comics, Warner Bros, CNN, etc. Therefore, “Max” is a good name to cover all types of content, since it does not suggest any specific one.
Likewise, it was revealed that “Max” will borrow ideas from Disney + by grouping the most important intellectual properties of Warner Bros and Discovery in “hubs” or sections that allow the user to find all the content they want to see of something specific. It will be similar to how Disney+ bundles content from Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, among others, on its platform.
Nothing has been said about the prices of this new platform yet. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said they want to make “Max” profitable by increasing subscriptions and also advertising revenue . Therefore, it is more than clear that they will offer a cheap subscription with ads, as both HBO Max and Discovery + already do. Considering that, in the third quarter, the two services added almost 95 million subscribers worldwide, “Max’s” profitability plans do not look bad.
