Max, Paramount+ Are Both in Line for Price Increases as CEOs Tout Content Additions, Limited Churn from Previous Hikes
Max users were likely quite surprised to learn that no imminent price increases were coming to the service, despite the announcement that live sports will be added to the platform in the near future. That comes on the heels of the late August announcement that Max was adding live news content from CNN, as well.
Nothing in life is truly free, however, and the new content coming to Max will result in the service raising prices sooner or later. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav confirmed as much this week when he spoke to Brett Feldman at the Goldman Sachs Communication and Technology conference.
“We think that there’s meaningful opportunity as we add quality content to Max and as we launch it around the world to move on price,” Zaslav said. “We think that the value that we’re creating and the amount of value we’re creating that we can get more price. When we have risen price, we haven’t found any — we found that the loss to us has been very minimal.”
WBD executed its first streaming price increase in history in January, and added a new tier with 4K streaming and other features for $19.99 per month when it replaced HBO Max with Max in May. The company will likely launch a new, higher-priced tier for viewers who want to watch live sports on Max in the future, probably closer to the start of the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
WBD isn’t the only company considering raising streaming prices, either. Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish was at the same conference, and he too spoke to Feldman about the potential of increasing subscription costs for Paramount+.
“Our plan is to raise price,” Bakish stated bluntly. “Whether we do that in ‘25 or we do that in ‘24, we’ll see. Again, early days as we evaluate the, call it, impact of the price increase, but we believe there’s a lot of room to run there.”
Paramount+ is one of the cheapest streaming platforms on the market currently, so it does make sense that company executives see room to bump up the price. Still, those words can’t hold much comfort for users who last saw their Paramount+ subscription price increase just a couple of months ago.
The streaming industry is undergoing a correction nowadays. It’s why so many streamers are talking about a new round of price increases, in the name of boosting their average revenue per user (ARPU). Streaming has to be profitable in order for share prices to increase, and now that most of the top subscription video services offer an ad-supported tier, the last option left to executives to achieve that goal is to raise prices.
Disney streamers will all see their subscription rates rise on Oct. 12, and a price increase for Netflix is only a matter of time. The truth is, streamers will likely continue raising prices until churn data shows that customers don’t have room in their budgets for another increase.
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.