Why Haven’t HBO Max Customers Revolted in Face of Removals and Cancelations? One Word: Content
Warner Bros. Discovery has taken its fair share of lumps in the press in 2022. But the company has only itself to blame, as CEO David Zaslav’s tactics in attempting to find over $5 billion in cuts to the company’s balance sheet since taking over in April have been unapologetic, to say the least.
Zaslav’s tenure began when WarnerMedia was acquired by Discovery in the spring; because of the merger, the newly formed company was over $50 million in debt at the time, and merger costs proved higher than initially forecast. Zaslav certainly has a difficult job to do, but the methods he has used to go about it have been incredibly unpopular with some of WBD’s working partners.
Many of the cost-cutting measures enacted by the company have had a profound impact on its flagship streaming service HBO Max. The biggest ripples started over the summer when WBD decided that a $90 million write-off was preferable to releasing the nearly-complete “Batgirl” movie directly onto HBO Max. The film’s creators have said they would work with WBD again, but only “on the condition that the movie comes out,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Other creators have been less shy about voicing their displeasure with the company. Julia Pott, who created the now-removed animated series “Summer Camp Island,” took to Twitter to express her feelings when the removal was announced in August. Animation has been especially hard hit at WBD and HBO Max, with the company outsourcing many of its animated shows, and even the cartoon rights to popular DC characters to other services to cut costs.
We worked for 5 years to make 100 episodes of animation. We worked late into the night, we let ourselves go, we were a family of hard working artists who wanted to make something beautiful, and HBO MAX just pulled them all like we were nothing. Animation is not nothing!
— Julia Pott (@juliapott) August 18, 2022
For all of the issues that WBD has created for itself with its content partners, customers have not yet registered their displeasure in meaningful ways. In fact, while there has been a lot of social media backlash from the most ardent fans of specific shows, genres, and cinematic universes, several surveys by various media research and analytics companies in 2022 have shown HBO Max regularly scores highly in terms of customer satisfaction metrics.
One survey from late June found that over 90% of HBO Max users were satisfied with the service, the highest of any streamer. That survey also found that if users had to pick just one streaming service to keep for the rest of their lives, 19% would go with HBO Max.
Users have also reported a high rate of satisfaction with how HBO Max handles ads. An August survey showed that 92% of users on the service’s ad-supported tier were happy with their subscription, the highest rate of any ad-supported streaming option on the market. That data was backed up by a recent December report which showed HBO Max and WBD’s other streamer discovery+ were Nos. 1 and 2 in customer satisfaction with the number of ads shown during content.
HBO Max’s quarterly subscriber numbers also show users aren’t walking away in disgust from the service’s many recent changes; at least not yet. The service reported adding 2.8 million global users in the third quarter of 2022 for a total of nearly 95 million. With all of the highly publicized issues continuing for the service, why haven’t customers staged a revolt at HBO Max?
The short answer is content. HBO Max saw a record-breaking debut for “The House of the Dragon” in early fall, and the second season of its dark comedy “The White Lotus” has vied with the hit Paramount Network Western drama “Yellowstone” as the most talked-about series of the season. Whatever metric WBD is using to determine which shows customers are watching before removing them from HBO Max must be at least somewhat accurate, because it hasn’t caused a massive user defection as of yet.
Such a mass exodus of customers could be coming, however. HBO Max only added 500K U.S. subscribers in Q3, and it’s continuing cuts of shows and movies has become bolder. The service recently canceled both “Westworld” and “The Nevers,” and announced plans to introduce ads to HBO original content on the ad-supported tier of HBO Max. Previously, HBO originals were always ad-free on that price plan.
Users have also been watching with mixed emotions as the company executes big changes with one of its biggest franchises, DC Comics. James Gunn and Peter Safran are highly respected names in the industry, but they seem to be essentially starting over with DC movies, rebooting the Superman franchise without Henry Cavill and shelving Patty Jenkin’s version of the newest Wonder Woman sequel. A new Wonder Woman movie starring Gal Gadot may or may not be resurrected, but it’s clear that WBD has a new vision for one of its most important characters.
HBO Max is still home to the most award-winning titles of any service, recently adding 14 Golden Globe nominations to its name. But the service’s impending merger with discovery+ in the spring of 2023 has become a hugely important inflection point for WBD. If that merger goes poorly and is accompanied by a major price increase, it could be the final straw that causes HBO Max customers to unsubscribe en masse.
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