Report: Max to Bundle With Netflix for Discounted Price for Select Verizon Wireless Customers

The corporate ties between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery are continuing to deepen. A recent licensing agreement has allowed several HBO series to be imported by Netflix for its subscribers to enjoy, and a new exclusive report from the Wall Street Journal has details on the next partnership between the two companies.

• The WSJ reports that Netflix and WBD’s streaming service Max will be offered as a bundle for Verizon myPlan users.
• The bundle will incorporate ad-supported versions of both services and cost around $10 per month.
• WBD CEO David Zaslav has spoken regarding the need for further aggregation of streaming services in a crowded market.

What Will New Netflix/Max Bundle Look Like?

The WSJ is reporting that soon, customers of Verizon’s myPlan offering will be able to access a bundle of ad-supported Netflix and ad-supported Max together for one monthly price. That fee will be around $10 per month, a substantial discount over the $16.98 per month it would cost to purchase these two services separately.

The bundle is expected to be officially announced by Verizon “in coming weeks.” Users who bundle their streaming services through Verizon plans or on its aggregation platform +play churn at a rate of 60%-70% less often than the average streaming subscriber, according to Verizon executive Sowmyanarayan Sampath.

Are We A Few Years from a Netflix-WBD Acquisition?

While it’s still absurdly early for this question, it is reasonable to wonder how much further the corporate ties between WBD and Netflix will deepen. As noted above, the two sides have a current licensing agreement which allows HBO originals like “Six Feet Under,” “Band of Brothers”, “Insecure,” “Ballers” and others to stream on Netflix, and both sides have seen gains from that decision.

WBD CEO David Zaslav has spoken frankly on the need for more streaming services to do precisely what his is doing with Netflix in bundling for Verizon customers. In May, he discussed his opinion that streamers coming together on third-party platforms to offer their services at a discounted price would help bring down churn, and make for a better customer experience overall.

“If we don’t do it to ourselves, I think it will be done to us,” he warned his competitors.

The Verizon bundle with Netflix is exactly what Zaslav is looking for for now. But in the future, who knows? WBD was brought up as a potential target for Comcast to acquire last fall, and while it said flatly at the time that it wasn't for sale, Netflix could make an offer few other companies can if it were interested. Netflix is the world’s largest streaming service at 247.15 million global users and is one of the few companies out there that has managed to make streaming a successful business.

Again, if an acquisition of WBD by Netflix were to happen at all, it’s still years away. But the two sides are clearly comfortable doing business with each other, and the new discounted bundle of Netflix and Max that Verizon is reportedly about to offer to its myPlan subscribers is just the latest example of that comfort.