At $15, HBO Max is one of the priciest streaming services on the market. However, WarnerMedia has always planned for a lower cost ad-supported version of HBO Max. According to a thread on Reddit, the company sent out an HBO Max survey that gave a little insight into what the ad-supported tier of the service would look like.
According to the survey, HBO Max would come with two subscription offers. The HBO Max plan would keep the service as it is today, offering all content without ads. The HBO Max with Ads plan, however, would feature ads in select content, including Max originals. Ads would be between two to four minutes per hour of viewing, less than competitors such as Hulu.
However, there won’t be any ads in any HBO original content, that includes all movies, series, documentaries, etc. There also won’t be any ads in roughly 50 percent of the movies on the platform, including the most recent/popular titles.
The news comes as WarnerMedia has been on a mission to clean up and clarify confusion among all its streaming services. When HBO Max launched back in May, consumers were a bit confused and could not really differentiate the new service from already existing ones, HBO GO and HBO Now.
In June, WarnerMedia announced that going forward, there will be simply two apps: HBO and HBO Max. HBO Go was officially sunsetted on July 31, while HBO Now will be referred to as “HBO.”