Warner Bros. Discovery on April 12 unveiled Max, a streaming service that mixes its HBO Max and Discovery+ offerings. The recent streaming service will launch within the U.S. on May 23, per a press release.
Max will house content from the Warner Bros. Discovery catalog, including HBO Originals, Warner Bros. movies, the DC universe, the world of Harry Potter and a variety of programming from its HGTV, Food Network, Discovery Channel and TLC brands. The offering combines the premium, prestige content of HBO Max with the Discovery+ portfolio, which focuses on food, home, reality and lifestyle programming.
“This recent brand signals a vital change from two narrower products, HBO Max and discovery+, to our broader content offering and consumer proposition. While each product offered something for some people, Max could have a broad array of quality selections for everyone,” said JB Perrette, president and CEO for global streaming and games at Warner Bros. Discovery, in the discharge.
Max will feature three pricing options, starting at an ad-lite option that costs $9.99/month or $99.99/12 months and doesn’t offer offline downloads. Max Ad Free costs $15.99/month or $149.99/12 months and includes offline downloads, while Max Ultimate Ad Free is offered for $19.99/month or $199.99/12 months and ups the variety of concurrent streams from two to 4 and offers other audio-visual upgrades.
Max is being positioned as a streaming service for all ages and interests and guarantees greater than 40 recent titles and seasons every month. Along with announcing the brand new service, Warner Bros. Discovery laid out a powerful slate of latest programming that leverages the media conglomerate’s IP reservoir.
Newly announced titles include a recent adaptation of the “Harry Potter” book series, a comedy spin-off of “The Big Bang Theory,” a “Game of Thrones” prequel and a drama series based on “The Conjuring” film series. Max also previewed “The Batman” spin-off “The Penguin,” “True Detective: Night Country” and HGTV’s four-part “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge,” which may even stream on Max.
Max also guarantees improved technical features, including a recent video playback experience, personalization that relies on each machine learning and human curation, a more outstanding kids experience and simplified navigation. Executives also nodded to addressing performance issues which have dogged HBO Max.
“Our incredible team has been hard at work taking the very best of each legacy technology platforms to deliver a product that works a lot better,” Perrette said within the press release. “We’re confident that each one these enhancements will deliver a stronger experience for our customers, which can drive more engagement, help enhance retention, and improve customer satisfaction, which in turn will help us proceed to scale.”
The combined Max streaming service is a foremost component of the merged Warner Bros. Discovery. Executives have said they expect the streaming business to interrupt even by 2024 and yield $1 billion in profit by the top of 2025. Warner Bros. Discovery accomplished its merger in April 2022 but lawmakers this week called on the Department of Justice to research whether or not the merged company has harmed staff and reduced consumer selection.
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