Why is HBO Max becoming Max? The full story

Earlier this week, executives at Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of HBO Max, made headlines after announcing that they would be rebranding the streaming platform and changing its name to Max.

As previously reported, one of the reasons behind the change stems from Warner Bros. Discovery wanting to expand and bring in a younger audience. In addition to the announcement, when Max debuts in the United States next month, the platform will also include reality television programming alongside its existing titles, because of the company’s partnership with Discovery Plus.

At the same time, according to Bloomberg, another factor for the name change and the collaboration between HBO Max and Discovery Plus is to help beat out Warner Bros. Discovery’s competition, including Netflix and Disney. The publication claims that in late 2022 when Warner Bros. Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav merged the company with Discovery Communications, a company he previously owned, Netflix and Disney had over twice the size of streaming customers. At the time, Warner Bros. had about “96 million subscribers.”

With the added unscripted programming to Max, Bloomberg states that it could cause an increase in viewers to the streaming platform, which will also attract more advertisers. To date, it is reported by Nielsen, a research firm, that HBO Max obtained less than 1.5% in viewership despite its critically-acclaimed shows and access to newly released films. Regardless of the disappointing results, its competition Netflix has five times more viewership, and other platforms like Hulu and Amazon Prime Video followed behind with twice the amount of views.

The head of Warner Bros. Discovery streaming business, Jean-Briac Perrette, claimed that the company’s low viewership was because of the HBO Max app’s technology’s inability to recommend shows and movies to the subscriber based on their previous selection. He said,

“There’s a lot of stuff machines can do much better.”

It is also reported that 75% of HBO Max viewers just select what’s provided to them on the app’s homepage because of the disadvantage. Next month’s debut of Max will also come with new prices. Depending on the advertisement or no-advertisement selection, subscription holders could pay about $10 to $20 monthly.

Max will be publicly unveiled in the United States on May 23. As for those living in Latin America, it will debut later this year, and for some European and Asian countries, Max will premiere in 2024.