At the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront presentation in New York, it was announced that Max, the company’s premier streaming platform, will be rebranded HBO Max this summer.
David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said: “The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.”
During the WBD Upfront on stage at Madison Square Garden, JB Perrette, President and CEO of Streaming, and Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, provided further details on the upcoming change.
Perrette: “We will continue to focus on what makes us unique – not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families. It’s really not subjective, not even controversial – our programming just hits different.”
Bloys: “With the course we are on and strong momentum we are enjoying, we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition. And it clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”
WBD’s streaming business has incredible momentum, turning around its profitability by almost $3B in just two years and scaling globally with 22M subscribers added over the past year, with a clear path to over 150M+ by the end of 2026. This is thanks to an enormous amount of hard work, investment and re-focusing the strategy on the programming that is working best like HBO, recent box-office movies, docuseries, certain reality series, and Max and local originals, and de-prioritizing other genres that drive less engagement or acquisition.
This evolution has also been influenced by changing consumer needs, and the fact that no consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content. With other services filling the more basic needs with volume, WBD has clearly distinguished itself through its quality and distinct stories, and no brand has done that better and more consistently over 50+ years than HBO.
Returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering. It is also a testament to WBD’s willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach – leaning heavily on consumer data and insights – to best position itself for success.
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