HBO Max, discovery+ Add 1.6 Million Subscribers, Grow to 97.6 Million Global Customers in First Quarter 2023
The first quarter of 2023 was also the final quarter in the brief lifespan of HBO Max. Nearly three years to the day after HBO Now was rebranded into HBO Max on May 27, 2020, the service will be born again as its newest iteration, which will simply be titled Max, on May 23.
The streamer’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery held its quarterly conference call to discuss its earnings report with investors and analysts on Friday, May 5. As part of the call, WBD revealed that HBO Max and discovery+ have combined to add 1.6 million streaming customers, bringing their total to 97.6 million overall. That’s a moderate increase over the 96.1M global customers the two services had at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022. Since the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2022, the company has reported subscriber totals for its two streamers together.
Domestically, WBD added 700,000 streaming customers, whereas its international user totals grew by 800,000. The collective total represents a 7.96% year-over-year growth.
These numbers show healthy growth for WBD’s streaming arm, but it still has a long way to go before it catches up to its biggest competitors. Netflix now claims 232.5M users worldwide, and although last quarter was the first in which Disney lost streaming users, it still has 234.7M customers between Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.
When Max launches on May 23, it will still be far ahead of some other services in the industry in terms of users. Peacock, for example, now has 22M paying customers around the globe, and Paramount+’s last subscriber report put its total at 60M. Neither Apple TV+ nor Prime Video report their subscriber numbers publicly.
The biggest story by far for WBD this past quarter was its April 12 press conference at which it revealed details about Max. Details about the service including its official name, the price users should expect to pay, what content (such as a new “Harry Potter” series) will be on the new service, improvements to the user experience, and much more were revealed during the conference.
Despite the wealth of new content that will be available on Max, one thing that won’t be on the service initially is live sports. The service will launch without a large offering of news and sports, though company executives have stated those items could be added to Max later. WBD will be fully invested in keeping broadcast rights to the NBA when those go on the market after the 2024-25 season, despite some misgivings caused by CEO David Zaslav saying his company didn’t “have to have” the league’s broadcast rights in late 2022. That means that WBD’s linear channels like TNT will likely be airing more NBA games in the years to come.
International expansion has also been a theme for WBD this past quarter. In late April, the company reached a deal with Viacom18 to distribute Max titles in India via the streaming service JioCinema. WBD came to a similar pact with the Canadian outlet Bell Media in early May, sending its Max content to the Canadian streamer Crave instead of simply launching the full Max product in Canada.
There are a few legal complications the company has had to deal with in the past three months. For starters, WBD filed a lawsuit against Paramount Global over contract language regarding the licensing deal between the two companies for the animated series “South Park.” WBD claims that Paramount has broken the spirit of the deal by making content for Paramount+ and designating it as a “special” or “movie,” when really this content is in the form of glorified TV episodes. Since WBD holds the streaming rights to all episodes of “South Park,” this is a violation of the pact. Paramount has countersued, claiming that WBD is illegally withholding licensing fees while the case makes its way through court.
Some members of Congress would like to make WBD’s legal troubles even worse, at least potentially. A group of legislators has asked the Department of Justice to investigate alleged anti-competitive practices on the part of WBD, claiming that the company’s large market share has allowed it to harm workers and heighten barriers to entry in the media and entertainment industry.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.