The shifting fortunes of the streaming industry are hard enough without unforced errors. Nevertheless, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery seemingly committed such mistakes in recent years by unnecessarily re-naming their marquee streaming products. In 2025, both companies essentially admitted their blunders by reversing course and changing the names back to their original versions, but the moves are just smaller pieces in a larger puzzle of missteps that each company’s executives have made as they try to transition into a world where entertainment is more and more digital.

It was two years ago that Paramount and WBD both decided to change the names of their streaming products. In January 2023, Paramount decided to name its ad-free streaming tier Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, and HBO Max became simply Max in May of the same year.

The logic behind both moves seemed clear, if not overwrought, at the time. Paramount wanted to make sure that viewers were aware of the premium SHOWTIME content available on the Paramount+ ad-free tier, especially since that content isn’t available on the ad-supported Paramount+ Essential plan. WBD, meanwhile, had made the decision to put a large selection of on-demand content from its cable channels — content that was previously available only on the discovery+ streaming service — onto HBO Max. The company was concerned that without a rebrand, viewers wouldn’t associate HBO Max with the new content that was coming to its library.

Still, there were immediate questions from viewers and analysts about the wisdom of each move. When Paramount decided to execute its name change, it inexplicably decided to rename the SHOWTIME premium cable channel as Paramount+ with SHOWTIME as well, heaping fuel on the confusion fire. Customers were left wondering if Showtime was adding Paramount+ content, and if a subscription to a pay-TV plan with the SHOWTIME channel included would now also include free on-demand content.

Many also wondered why WBD would voluntarily discard the HBO from its streaming service’s name. The HBO brand has become synonymous with quality ever since “The Sopranos” changed the way audiences think about television; when viewers see the static-filled HBO title card before a TV series, they know they’re probably about to see something great. None of the HBO content left Max when the streamer was renamed, and at the time, many asked why the company would ditch such a well-regarded brand.

Whether or not either streamer lost subscribers because of the name changes is difficult to say; both have more subscribers than they did in 2023, to be sure. But it’s fair to assume that at least some viewers did not sign up for these streamers because they weren’t sure what they’d be getting if they did.

More to the point, however, the naming errors made by both companies are just another in a pattern of mistakes that have plagued both in recent years. Paramount’s errors have played out quite publicly; the largest being a sloppy merger process with Skydance Media that got so entangled with a lawsuit leveled by President Trump that it took a $16 million settlement to get rolling. Setting aside the media ethics concerns involved in that process — which are numerous — the merger has also been beset with lawsuits, and it’s the opinion of many in Hollywood that Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone found the best deal for herself at the expense of other shareholders.

WBD’s blemishes have been no less public since Discovery merged with WarnerMedia in 2022. The continued bungling of the DC franchise that eventually forced a complete reboot, the loss of NBA broadcast rights, the degradation of working relationships with talent across Hollywood because of the approach taken by WBD management, and continued financial struggles by one of Tinseltown’s oldest and most-respected companies culminated in a recent non-binding vote by shareholders against awarding CEO David Zaslav his 2024 pay package.

None of this is to say that Paramount and WBD can’t turn things around. The biggest hurdle facing the Skydance merger has now been cleared for Paramount, and incoming CEO David Ellison has a clear plan for the future of the new company. WBD has decided to spin off its cable channels into a separate company, and the increased focus on its movie studio and streaming service could be exactly what the company needs to compete against Netflix and Disney going forward.

Nevertheless, at the moment, it’s hard not to see the naming errors by both Paramount and WBD regarding their streaming services as symptoms of a larger problem: dysfunction at the top. Unless both can correct that overarching problem — and soon — it could mean tough times will continue. And the problem of dysfunction on this scale can’t be wiped away with a simple name change.