The launch of HBO Max is now only two months away and as the days draw closer to May, curiosity about the streaming service continues to grow. During the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Tuesday, AT&T president and COO John Stankey opened up about some of the last-minute adjustments the company is doing behind-the-scenes to ensure the service launches without a hitch.
Stankey revealed that the company has just recently made some changes based on some feedback from a controlled group they employed to test the app. “We just put our second beta out within the controlled beta group that we have. Some new features came out on that, some important features that build on the base of the first beta, profiling of the customers, content download,” he stated. “And it’s good to see those features starting to manifest themselves. They still need a little bit of work. And the team has a work plan to get that buttoned up and ready to go. But I feel like the technology team has confidence about what they’ve committed to deliver in May, and I feel that, that’s going to be really good.”
In addition, Stankey also revealed that unlike the other newer services — Disney+, which caters mostly to the kids demographic, and Apple TV+ and Quibi, which cater more to younger people — HBO Max will carry content for everyone in a household. “I think it’s going to be a great content offer. It’s going to be a content offer that we’ll have something for everybody in the household. They’re going to look at it and say, I see myself there … and it doesn’t matter whether you are a child in the household … a mother, a father,” he explained.
“You’re going to see something in that offering that [makes you say] I resonate with that and that’s relevant. And it’s the strength of the household that we believe will be the strength of HBO Max, that customers look at it and say, this is something that the members of this household get utility in, and therefore, I want to buy this product and have it in the cycle, and feel really good about our content offering.”
HBO Max will launch in May 2020 at $14.99 a month — the same price as HBO Now. Original shows include “The Flight Attendant,” a one-hour thriller series starring and co-produced by Kaley Cuoco; “Love Life,” a 10-episode half-hour romantic comedy anthology series starring and co-produced by Anna Kendrick; and “Dune: The Sisterhood,” an adaptation of Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson’s book based in the world created by Frank Herbert’s book “Dune.”
HBO Max will also be the exclusive home for “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.”
They also have the exclusive rights to “Sesame Street,” bringing the franchise’s entire 50-year library to a streaming platform for the first time; they also secured the U.S. streaming rights for Japan’s Studio Ghibli and have ordered two unscripted kids competition series — “Karma” and “Craftopia.”