Warner Bros. Discovery to Share Details of Unified HBO Max, discovery+ Streaming Service in April
Warner Bros. Discovery to Share Details of Unified HBO Max, discovery+ Streaming Service in April
After nearly a year of discussion, Warner Bros. Discovery is finally getting ready to reveal when it will be (mostly) combining its two disparate streaming services into one unified, four-quadrant platform that brings together the prestige programming of HBO Max and the unscripted lean-back content of discovery+.
As part of WBD’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, WBD CEO David Zaslav revealed that the new service would become available to customers in the next few months and that the company would present more details at a special event on April 12. The company brass began touting this eventuality even before Discovery officially acquired WarnerMedia last April. At first, the plan was to introduce the unified streamer in the summer of 2023, but in November, the company announced that it would be moving up its timeline to launch in the spring instead.
Earlier this month — likely anticipating the concerns of discovery+ customers who would not appreciate having their bills increase by 300% for HBO content they were not interested in — it was reported that while the vast majority of Discovery content would be coming to the merged service when it launches, WBD would be allowing discovery+ to remain as a standalone service with a small number of titles being exclusives for the streamer.
The particulars of the unified streamer were not confirmed on the call, but in January, WBD announced that it was raising the price for HBO Max's ad-free tier from $14.99 to $15.99. This would seem to be the absolute floor for the premium version of what the streamers will become later this spring.
Zaslav also confirmed that the merged service will be coming to Latin America later this year and to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region in 2024. While the specific details of the service are still not public, cord-cutters at least now have a date to look forward to when many of their questions will presumably be answered.
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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.
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discovery+
discovery+ is a video streaming service that offers more than 70,000 episodes of 2,500+ current and classic shows from several popular TV brands including Discovery, Investigation Discovery, HGTV, TLC, Food Network, A&E, Lifetime, and History.