HBO Max and Discovery+ were going to become one, then they weren’t, and now they’re reportedly coming together again in a way, with a new price and new name. According to Bloomberg, Warner Bros. Discovery will commence with the merging of the two streaming platforms with an announcement coming in April, bringing the immense reality offerings to HBO Max and not raising the price.
As Bloomberg notes, the company will only charge $10 a month for the advertising-supported tier of the service. They will continue to charge $15 or $16 per month to go ad-free, but they will also add a tier at $20 per month to offer video quality and other features. The outlet notes that these plans could change and the sources did not want to be identified while discussing internal talks.
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On top of the surprising news about the price of the service, there was also news about a name to replace HBO Max and Discovery+. Instead of some mash-up name, the decision is likely to come down to Max, dropping HBO from the branding.
Bloomberg notes that CEO David Zaslav is hoping the addition of Discovery programming will bring in more subscribers, especially with the unshifted price structure. He is also the final note on the name change, feeling HBO turns away potential subscribers.
Despite the merge that is coming, the separate Discovery+ streaming platform will remain in operation. The focus for Zaslav and the company is on profit over a bulk of programming or content, also not utilizing the company’s 96 million paying subscribers.
The company has also shown their streak for profit in the efforts to lower the immense debt the merger of Warnermedia and Discovery dumped. That means many of the series and originals produced for HBO Max have been removed from the service entirely, while other projects were canceled or never released. The essentially complete Batgirl film is a prime example of the latter, while the animation division at HBO Max was left in rubble.
