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Max is coming to market.
Following months of streaming rumors and speculation, Warner Bros. Discovery is officially combining its streaming services HBO Max and Discovery+ under one brand: Max.
Launching May 23 with a new tagline, color and mission, the upcoming service will drop the iconic HBO moniker in favor of the single word.
“HBO has not and is not changing course at all,” Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content (boasting a new title), assured viewers during Wednesday’s press announcement. After showing trailers for three upcoming series, Bloys remarked, “As you can see, HBO will remain HBO.”
The $43 billion merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery closed last year, and David Zaslav, CEO of the combined company, described 2022 as a “year of coming together, a year of restructuring,” before adding, “Off we go, all together, to build Warner Bros. Discovery into the next century.”
The company is hopeful that by dropping the HBO name, a new brand will encapsulate the full breadth of content the combined service will offer, pointing specifically to kids and family viewership like the Looney Tunes brand.
A new model
Max comes on the heels of a more than $200 million fourth-quarter loss in the streaming segment alone for Warner Bros. Discovery, which reported 96.1 million total direct-to-consumer subscribers at the end of 2022.
With the new tagline, “The one to watch,” and ditching the former purple color palette for a Facebook-like blue, Max wants to stand out in a “sea of streaming services,” according to JB Perrette, president and CEO of global streaming and games at WBD.
“We needed to do the basics much better,” said Perrette. “In this era of peak confusion, we’re trying to simplify and improve the experience for consumers, focusing on quality, not just quantity.”
“HBO is not TV. HBO is HBO,” Perrette added. “It needs to stay that way, which is why we will privilege it in the product experience and not push it to the breaking point by forcing it to take on the full breadth of this new content proposition.”
