Max to Begin Password-Sharing Crackdown as Soon as This Fall, Paid Sharing Options to Be Available
Customers will reportedly be able to pay to add a non-household member to their Max account, similar to Netflix.
It seemed like a foregone conclusion that Max would roll out restrictions against sharing passwords at some point. After all, the streamer is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, whose CEO David Zaslav has made it abundantly clear throughout his tenure that no opportunity to cut costs or boost revenues will be ignored. A new report from Lucas Shaw and Robert Golum of Bloomberg indicates that the company’s lack of action on password-sharing rules to this point is likely to change in 2024 and that a crackdown on such viewing habits is likely to come before the end of the year.
Key Details:
- Max’s password-sharing crackdown could begin as early as this fall.
- Viewers will be able to pay less than the cost of an ad-supported Max subscription to add a sharer to their account.
- As of 2022, almost 15% of Max subscribers said they watched an account paid for by someone else.
How Will Max Charge for Password Sharing?
Bloomberg indicates that Max could begin introducing rules to stop viewers from sharing their accounts as soon as this fall. The timing will certainly be auspicious for the platform, which will see titles like “The Penguin” and “Dune: Part Two” debut in the later part of the year.
Max is planning to follow the lead of Netflix by allowing customers to pay to add people outside of their household to existing accounts. However, despite the industry’s penchant for following Netflix’s lead, the WBD strategy will differ slightly. The company’s flagship streamer will allow account holders to add a new customer to their Max account at less than a standalone $9.99-per-month Max with ads plan. For contrast, Netflix charges $1 per month more for extra viewers on a given account than it does for its $6.99-per-month Standard with Ads subscription.
Why is Max Rolling Out Password-Sharing Restrictions?
A report from October 2022 found that 14% of Max (then HBO Max) viewers said that they watched an account paid for by someone else. That’s simply too large of a potential customer base for the streamer to ignore, particularly as it tries to build on its first year of net profitability.
Max showed a profit of $103 million in 2023, and it needs to continue building that success by getting more people to pay for the streamer. That need is driven by the fact that WBD stock is down 29% this year even with its modest streaming profits, as investors are still leery about the company’s declines in linear revenue and its heavy debt load.
Rules against password sharing caused the practice to decline in 2023, so there is a clear incentive for WBD to introduce such restrictions for Max. A recent survey from Bango found that 35% of consumers said they decided to pay for a streamer that they formerly watched free through another’s account in 2023, demonstrating there is a good-sized cohort of viewers who are willing to pay to watch content they had received via sharing in the past.
WBD isn’t the only legacy media company preparing to launch new rules against password sharing. Disney has already updated the terms of service on its streamers Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ to make account-sharing a violation of the user agreement, and will begin actively enforcing the rules starting this summer.
Max has 97.7 million paid customers around the world, and is likely to reach the 100 million mark before it introduces password-sharing restrictions. But such restrictions are on their way, and viewers should expect to see Max crack down on account sharing as soon as fall 2024.
Max Will Begin Charging for Sports Content in Europe
Bloomberg’s report also indicates that European customers will have to start paying to watch sports on Max this summer, ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics. Max holds the rights to stream the games in Europe and will try to boost revenues by making sports a paid add-on there. Customers in the United States are also bracing for the Bleacher Report Sports add-on to become a paid feature this summer.
When the B/R Sports Add-On premiered in October 2023, the plan had been for the sports programming from TBS, TNT, truTV, and other WBD-owned outlets to be free until March 2024 when it would convert to a $9.99 per month fee on top of the monthly subscription rate. The timing was set to correspond with the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament airing on TBS and TNT and then the NBA and NHL playoff in April.
However, technological concerns — and potentially the forthcoming fall launch of WBD's joint streaming venture with Disney and Fox — pushed back the launch. While no date has yet been confirmed for the transition to a paid service, with it also happening in Europe, it might not be too much longer before American subscribers will have to pony up a bit more money to watch sports on Max.
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.